OK. I'm fairly new to VMware but I have a good technical background. I've inherited a cluster of (4) physical hosts running vSphere Enterprise 4.1 and (1) Dell desktop running vCenter Server 4.1.0 (491557) on a Windows XP Pro 64-bit workstation. vCenter Server is currently running SQL 2005 on this XP box. I want to migrate our platform to vSphere Enterprise 5.5. I have the necessary licenses and have been doing a lot of reading online regarding the process. From everything I've gathered the first thing that needs to happen is to get vCenter server updated to 5.5, however before I can do that I need to get vCenter Server on new hardware because it's currently on this XP workstation. So, I can build a new Server 2008 R2 server and install SQL 2008 or use the embedded SQL instance, but I know there has to be a lot of other necessary steps to migrate all of the necessary data/settings/configuration from the XP station w/ SQL 2005 to the new Server 2008 R2.
I've read through a lot of documentation including the links below but it all just seems overly complicated and I'm hoping some of the experts can help me better determine the proper path and processes/steps to take to get me where I need to be. Any insight/guidance/tips would be greatly appreciated. Also, if there is another approach that I'm missing that would be a better option please let me know.
Articles I've read through:
Upgrading to vcenter server 5.5 best practices: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2053132
Migrating from one vcenter server host to another: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=5850444
Upgrading to vcenter 5.5 on windows platform: VMware KB: Upgrading to vCenter Server 5.5 on a Microsoft Windows platform
Any and all help would be extremely helpful, thanks in advance!
-mcbride