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Graham Elder's avatar
Graham Elder
Copper Contributor
Nov 11, 2016

Upgrading Hyper-V Server 2012 R2 to 2016

Hello all,

 

I have a couple of Hyper-V Server 2012R2 boxes  (the free 'core' offering). Is anyone aware of procedures or documentation to perform an upgrade of these boxes to Hyper-V Server 2016??

 

Many thanks,

Graham

  • I prefer doing this: Create a cluster with your Hyper-V servers (failover role), then move (live migration) the VMs from the Host that will be upgraded and perform the upgrade.

    Also you could perform a clean install as well.

    Note: You mus have available RAM and CPU on the hosts to support the adicional VMs coming from the hosts you want to upgrade

    • remco-vermeer's avatar
      remco-vermeer
      Copper Contributor

      Given that there is shared storage available to host the VM's (SAN CSV or Windows FileServer) that would seem like the way to go.

       

      In our clusters we evict 1 node to perform a clean Windows 2016 install. After the upgrade and reconfiguration we re-join the node to the cluster. Rinse repeat for all cluster nodes.

       

      I always prefer a clean install over a inplace upgrade for an OS.

       

      Regards,

       

      Remco

  • Ed Gallagher's avatar
    Ed Gallagher
    Brass Contributor

    My preference is to do a clean install instead of an in place upgrade. You can migrate or export the VMs prior to the clean install.

    No matter what method you use, don't forget to upgrade the VM integration tools when the host upgrade is complete.

    Ed

  • Brian Ehlert's avatar
    Brian Ehlert
    Copper Contributor
    It has always been the cleanest option to power off your VMs, then upgrade the host. Never leave your VMs running, the saved memory states can cause issues as exposed features and capabilities can change between versions.
  • Karthik Ragavan's avatar
    Karthik Ragavan
    Copper Contributor

    The in-place upgrade works smoothly on Windows Server 2012 R2 HyperV to Server 2016.  There cant be any open 'saved' sessions and clean shutdown all VM's is recommended before starting the upgrade process.

  • Stuart Luscombe's avatar
    Stuart Luscombe
    Copper Contributor

    I'm curious about the same thing.

     

    I've not seen any articles or documents detailing it so I'm going to just dive in next week and try an in-place upgrade on my dev server.

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