You decide on the life cycle management of the NSX-T Data Center components in VMware Cloud Foundation according to the amount of time and effort to perform a deployment, upgrade, or patch operation. You also consider the impact such an operation has on the customer solutions that are connected to NSX-T Data Center for the VI workload domain.
Life Cycle Management for a Single VMware Cloud Foundation Instance
Life cycle management of NSX-T Data Center involves the process of applying patches, updates, or upgrades to the NSX-T Data Center appliances and hypervisor components.
In a typical environment, you perform life cycle management by using the upgrade coordinator which is a service in NSX Manager. When you implement a solution by using VMware Cloud Foundation, you use SDDC Manager for life cycle management where additional components, such as automatic patching, upgrade, and product compatibility verification, are included as part of the life cycle management process.
Decision ID |
Design Decision |
Design Justification |
Design Implication |
|---|---|---|---|
VCF-WLD-NSX-LCM-001 |
Use SDDC Manager to perform the life cycle management of NSX Manager and related components in the workload domain. |
Because the deployment scope of SDDC Manager covers the full SDDC stack, SDDC Manager performs patching, update, or upgrade of the workload domain as a single process. |
The operations team must understand and be aware of the impact of a patch, update, or upgrade operation by using SDDC Manager. |
Life Cycle Management for Multiple VMware Cloud Foundation Instances
The NSX Global Manager and NSX-T Data Center instances in the individual VI workload domains must be compatible and supported version with each other both during the upgrade and post-upgrade. To manage the life cycle of NSX Global Manager, use the upgrade coordinator. The version of SDDC Manager in this design does not handle the life cycle of NSX Global Manager nodes.
Decision ID |
Design Decision |
Design Justification |
Design Implication |
|---|---|---|---|
VCF-WLD-NSX-LCM-FED-001 |
Use the upgrade coordinator in NSX-T Data Center to perform life cycle management on the NSX Global Manager appliances. |
The version of SDDC Manager in this design is not currently capable of life cycle operations (patching, update, or upgrade) for NSX Global Manager. |
You must always align the version of the NSX Global Manager nodes with the rest of the SDDC stack in VMware Cloud Foundation. You must explicitly plan upgrades of the NSX Global Manager nodes. An upgrade of the NSX Global Manager nodes might require a cascading upgrade of the NSX Local Manager nodes and underlying SDDC Manager infrastructure prior to the upgrade of the NSX Global Manager nodes.
An upgrade of the VI workload domain from SDDC Manager might include an upgrade of the NSX Local Manager cluster which might require an upgrade of the NSX Global Manager cluster. An upgrade of NSX Global Manager might then require that you upgrade all other VI workload domains connected to it before you can proceed with upgrading the NSX Global Manager instance.
|
VCF-WLD-NSX-LCM-FED-002 |
Establish an operations practice to ensure that prior to the upgrade of any VI workload domain, the impact of any version upgrades is evaluated against the need to upgrade NSX Global Manager. |
The versions of NSX Global Manager and NSX Local Manager nodes must be compatible with each other. Because the version of SDDC Manager in this design does not provide of life cycle operations (patching, update, or upgrade) for the NSX Global Manager nodes, upgrade to an unsupported version cannot be prevented. |
The administrator must establish and follow an operational practice by using a runbook or automated process to ensure a fully supported and compliant bill of materials prior to any upgrade operation. |
VCF-WLD-NSX-LCM-FED-003 |
Establish an operations practice to ensure that prior to the upgrade of the NSX Global Manager, the impact of any version change is evaluated against the existing NSX Local Manager nodes and VI workload domains. |
The versions of NSX Global Manager and NSX Local Manager nodes must be compatible with each other. Because the version of SDDC Manager in this design does not provide of life cycle operations (patching, update, or upgrade) for the NSX Global Manager nodes, upgrade to an unsupported version cannot be prevented. |
The administrator must establish and follow an operational practice by using a runbook or automated process to ensure a fully supported and compliant bill of materials prior to any upgrade operation. |
