VMware - Stages of Upgrading

You can take any amount of time to complete each of the upgrade stages. However:

• You must complete one stage before you move to the next stage.

• After you start an upgrade stage, you cannot revert to the previous stage. Each of these stages is an irreversible process.

• Some major stages have minor steps within them. Follow the directions within each stage regarding the required sequence of minor steps.

Stage 1–Upgrading VMware VirtualCenter
- backup SQL db
Stage 2–Upgrading Your ESX Server Hosts and Datastores
Stage 2A–Upgrading a VMware ESX Server Host
Stage 2B–Upgrading a Datastore from VMFS2 to VMFS3
Stage 3–Upgrading Your Virtual Machines
Stage 4–Upgrading VMware Tools Within the Guest Operating System

Backup SQL db
Open the management studio in SQL 2005 and connect to the SQL server engine that manage the virtual center and update manager DB. right click and select stop the database engine. Follow by that, open you my computer and browse to the folder which contain the DB and DB log for your databse.

The path of the DB folder could look similiar as D:\SQL2005\MSSQL.2\MSSQL\Data which end with .mdf and .ldf.