Upgrade ESXi Hosts and Their Virtual Machines

Upgrading ESXi hosts and virtual machines is the most time-consuming aspect of this middle phase of a VMware Horizon upgrade.

This procedure provides an overview of the tasks you must perform during the second and subsequent maintenance windows. To complete some of these tasks, you might need step-by-step instructions found in the VMware vSphere Upgrade Guide and the Horizon Administration document.

For details about which versions of Horizon are compatible with which versions of vCenter Server and ESXi, see the VMware Product Interoperability Matrix at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/sim/interop_matrix.php.

Prerequisites

• Complete the procedure described in Upgrade Connection Servers in a Replicated Group.
• Perform the ESXi upgrade preparation tasks listed in the VMware vSphere Upgrade Guide.

Procedure

1. Upgrade ESXi hosts, cluster by cluster.
   For instructions, see the VMware vSphere Upgrade Guide. If your clusters contain vSAN datastores, also see the chapter about upgrading the vSAN cluster, in the Administering VMware vSAN document. This chapter contains a topic about upgrading ESXi hosts.

   If you have many clusters, this step could take several maintenance windows to complete. Upgrading ESXi hosts might include the following tasks:

   1. Use VMware vSphere^® vMotion^® to move the virtual machines off of the ESXi host.
   2. Put the host into maintenance mode.
   3. Perform the upgrade.
   4. Use VMotion to move the virtual machines back onto the host.
   5. Perform post-upgrade tasks for ESXi hosts.
   Every host must be a member of a cluster, as mentioned in the prerequisites.
2. If an upgraded host does not reconnect itself to vCenter Server, use vSphere Client to reconnect the host to vCenter Server.
3. (Optional) Upgrade VMware^® Tools™ and the virtual machines on all golden images, virtual machine templates, and virtual machines that host VMware Horizon server components such as Connection Server instances.
   1. Plan for down time, as described in the VMware vSphere Upgrade Guide.
   2. Update VMware Tools, and upgrade the virtual machine hardware for virtual machines that will be used as sources for remote desktops.
      For step-by-step instructions if you plan not to use VMware vSphere ^® Update Manager™, see the chapter about upgrading virtual machines in the VMware vSphere Virtual Machine Administration document.

      If you use VMware vSphere Update Manager, you can update VMware Tools and then the virtual hardware version in the correct order for all the virtual machines in a particular folder. See the VMware vSphere Upgrade Guide.

4. (Optional) If you use full-clone desktops, on each virtual machine, upgrade VMware Tools and the virtual hardware for virtual machines that will be used as sources for remote desktops.
   For step-by-step instructions if you plan not to use VMware vSphere ^® Update Manager™, see the chapter about upgrading virtual machines in the VMware vSphere Virtual Machine Administration document.

   If you use vSphere Update Manager, you can update VMware Tools and then the virtual hardware version in the correct order for all the virtual machines in a particular folder. See the VMware vSphere Upgrade Guide.

What to do next

Upgrade the agent software. See Upgrade Horizon Agent.