This chapter is about guiding you through the requirements and steps to upgrade older VMM versions to VMM 2016. We will start from the VMM 2008 R2 SP1 and end on current VMM 2016.
Note
There is no direct upgrade path from VMM 2008 R2 SP1 or VMM 2012 to VMM 2016. You must first upgrade VMM 2008 R2 to VMM 2012, and then to VMM 2012 R2. VMM 2008 R2 SP1 -> VMM 2012 -> SCVMM 2012 SP1 -> VMM 2012 R2 -> VMM 2016 is the correct upgrade path.
The main reasons for upgrading might be different:
- Evaluation copy has expired and you need to re-install or upgrade VMM:
- New functionality and the necessity of managing hosts running on a newer version of Windows Server or ESXi. You can't manage, for instance, Windows Server 2016 hosts in VMM 2012 R2.
- Product life cycle is coming to an end. Knowing the life cycle of your existing VMM helps you plan the upgrade and other infrastructure changes related to a virtualization platform including hosts, libraries, and so on. The following table shows...