Like most of you are aware it is really important to keep track of which VMware versions are compatible with each other.
But how can you keep track of these requirements? This is where the VMware Interoperability and upgrade matrix comes into play. Today I will show you how to use this matrix. So lets dive is shall we?
Upgrade path
So first I will show you how you can quickly find out how to upgrade your environment safely and correctly.
For the example below I have chosen ESXi as the software I want to upgrade.
So the first thing i need to do is go to the VMware interpretability website and select Upgrade path. Now I can enter which software I want to upgrade. I my case ESXi (At first I was confused because I could not find ESXi so take not of the naming convention used)
Now I can quickly see which version is compatible with which version.
Green means all is good
Red means that there are some incompatibility issues
Grey dash means no good don’t even go there it is not supported
Of course you can do this with other products as well but what is even more important then checking you direct upgrade path is the interpretability matrix.
Interoperability matrix
So now that I know which version I can upgrade to I want to know if I will break stuff with my upgrade or that I am all good.
I can check this using the VMware Interoperability matrix. Basically this means I can see which version of for instance ESXi is compatible with which version of vCenter.
As you can see in the example below there are more granular option available when checking the interopratability.
I can even check a whole Software defined datacenter stack if I want to.
So there you have it, one overview if what is and what isn’t compatible.
There is one final matrix you can consult on this page and that is the database interpretability matrix. Here you can quickly see which version of databases is supported. This matrix works the same way as the one above.
I hope you enjoyed reading this post about the VMware Interoperability and upgrade matrix and if so please also have a look at some of our other vSphere related posts on vblog.nl here.
