To upgrade to VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2.x, the management domain must be at VMware Cloud Foundation 4.5 or higher. If your environment is at a version lower than 4.5, you must upgrade the management domain to 4.5 or later and then upgrade to 5.2.x.

Until SDDC Manager is upgraded to version 5.2.x, you must upgrade the management domain before you upgrade VI workload domains. Once SDDC Manager is at version 5.2 or later, you can upgrade VI workload domains before or after upgrading the management domain, as long as all components in the workload domain are compatible.

Upgrade the components in the management domain in the following order:

  1. SDDC Manager and VMware Cloud Foundation services.

  2. VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle

  3. NSX Manager and NSX Global Managers (if applicable).

  4. vCenter Server.

  5. VxRail Manager and ESXi.

After all upgrades have completed successfully:

  1. Remove the VM snapshots you took before starting the update.

  2. Take a backup of the newly installed components.