Upgrading to Horizon View 6 – Part 3 – Connection Servers

OK, let’s not forget what we posted in the prepwork post, let’s make sure we do the following before proceeding:

Verify your connection servers have at least 2 vCPU (4 is recommended but I’ve seen 2 work just fine) and 10GB of RAM. You can use 4, but only plan on servicing <50 desktops
If virtual, take a snapshot of the first connection broker (we’ll revert using this guy if we absolutely have to, then completely uninstall and re-install the other connection brokers and their LDS instances to re-sync back up from the authoritative rollback)
Ensure that the pools still have provisioning disabled,
Navigate to C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware View\Server\tools\bin\vdmexport.exe. Create a backup of the AD-LDS Datastore by issuing the command: vdmexport > myvdmbackup.ldf
!! Ensure that the IIS console is not installed as a role on any of your connection servers

Alright time to gogo with screen shots!

Reader beware: I ran into an issue! Apparently because I had the IIS console installed when I upgraded VCS1. Before you all jump up on my shizzle, I only had the CONSOLE installed. I often times install the IIS console to perform certificate administration since it’s a little easier than the MMC snapin. Since the console doesn’t listen on either ports 80 or 443, this has never been issue previously. However, I noticed that when it was installed, the first View Connection Server services wouldn’t start and the /admin page was nonresponsive. We’ll see later in the screenshot guide how I ended up removing the service and reinstalling the connection server, after which it worked OK.

Stop all connection server services in the replicated instance

** EDIT 5/8/2015 – It is now supported to complete the operation without a complete downtime. Check this blog post for the details! **

Upgrade connection server 1

Tada! When it’s finished, make sure to stop the View Connection Server service before continuing on to the next broker.

Now start on Connection server 2.

Huzzah! Now let’s go start the services.

Except, what the heck? At this point, while some of the services would start, the admin page was unresponsive. This is usually indicative of a cert problem, but I made no changes to a working cert with the proper friendly name.

After fiddling around and looking at logs, I decided to remove the IIS role.
After removing the role and restarting the server, I uninstalled and re-installed the Connection Server. (Remember the data is stored in the AD LDS Instance pictured below, not in connection server config files. You can remove-reinstall without losing your database, pool configuration, etc.)

During the re-install, you will get this prompt which lets you know that it found the LDS instance and will use that instead of your choice in the Wizard. Once I removed the IIS Console all services started and were happy happy. Make sure to add your license in post upgrade.