The steps required to upgrade Oracle VM Server are provided in this section. Major changes to Oracle VM Server that improve performance, stability and enhance usability, require that you read this section thoroughly before you proceed with an upgrade.
Before you upgrade your Oracle VM Servers, you must upgrade the Oracle VM Manager which manages them. See Section 5.2, “Upgrading Oracle VM Manager” for information on upgrading Oracle VM Manager.
The underlying kernel and environment used for Oracle VM Server Release 3.3 differs considerably from previous releases. Therefore, the upgrade process from Release 3.2 and earlier is more complex, and requires that you perform the necessary preparation before performing the upgrade. This process is described in Section 5.4.1, “Preparing to Upgrade Oracle VM Servers from Release 3.2 or Earlier”. When you have performed all the required preparation, you can proceed to upgrade your Oracle VM Servers using the upgrade script provided, as described in Section 5.4.2, “Upgrading Oracle VM Server using the UpgradeServers.py Script”.
There are three methods you can use to upgrade Oracle VM Server Release 3.3:
Section 5.4.2, “Upgrading Oracle VM Server using the UpgradeServers.py Script”. This is the preferred method of performing errata release upgrades, since you are able to perform batch upgrades in a single step. Although the process may take as long as using the Oracle VM Manager Web Interface for each Oracle VM Server, you can execute the operation with a single command, rather than waiting for each server to complete the upgrade before initiating the upgrade on the next server.
Section 5.4.3, “Upgrading Oracle VM Server Using Oracle VM Manager”. This option is useful where there are a small number of Oracle VM Servers to upgrade, and you want to use a graphical interface to perform upgrades on a per-server basis. This upgrade option is only supported when upgrading from Oracle VM Server Release 3.3 to a later Oracle VM Server release.
Section 5.4.4, “Upgrading Oracle VM Server Using the CD”. This option requires direct access to the Oracle VM Server hardware and is only recommended in a situation where Oracle VM Manager is unavailable for some reason.
It is good practice to perform an initial upgrade on a single Oracle VM Server before attempting to upgrade the rest of the servers in a deployment. This helps you to resolve and debug any potentially missing pre-upgrade requirements before you perform a full upgrade of your environment.
It is also good practice to check that no unused files are
taking up disk space in the /boot or
/ directories prior to performing the
upgrade. If there is not enough disk space available in these
directories, an upgrade may fail or the server that is being
upgraded may be unable to reboot after the upgrade has
completed.
When you have upgraded an Oracle VM Server, it is recommended that you ensure the Oracle VM Storage Connect plug-ins you are using are updated to their latest versions as well. If you are using the default generic storage plug-ins, they are updated during the upgrade, but if you are using plug-ins provided by a third party vendor, you must obtain the packages from the vendor and install them yourself. Instructions for installing Oracle VM Storage Connect plug-ins are provided in the Oracle VM Administrator's Guide. If you are upgrading from a release prior to Oracle VM Server Release 3.3, you may need to add the packages for your third party plug-ins to the upgrade repository before performing the upgrade, as described in Section 5.4.1, “Preparing to Upgrade Oracle VM Servers from Release 3.2 or Earlier”.