Prerequisites and Best Practices for VMware Live Site Recovery Upgrade

Before you upgrade VMware Live Site Recovery, you must perform preparatory tasks on both sites and verify that you have certain information.

• Make a full backup of the VMware Live Site Recovery database by using the tools that the database software provides. For information about how to back up the embedded database, see Back Up and Restore the Embedded vPostgres Database. Migration of data from an external database to the embedded database is not supported. Failure to back up the database results in the loss of all VMware Live Site Recovery data if the upgrade fails.
• Perform a configuration export by using the VMware Live Site Recovery Configuration Import/Export Tool. See, Exporting and Importing VMware Live Site Recovery Configuration Data.
• If you configured advanced settings in the existing installation, take a note of the settings that you configured in Site Pair > Configure > Advanced Settings in the VMware Live Site Recovery user interface.
• Before you upgrade, check the supported upgrade paths.

  For information about supported upgrade paths, see Upgrade Path > VMware Site Recovery Manager in the VMware Product Interoperability Matrixes at https://interopmatrix.vmware.com/Upgrade before you upgrade.

• The local and remote vCenter Server instances must be running when you upgrade VMware Live Site Recovery.
• Upgrade the vCenter Server on the site on which you are upgrading VMware Live Site Recovery to a supported version.
  • When you upgrade or migrate a vCenter Server deployment using an external Platform Services Controller, you must first converge the external Platform Services Controller to an embedded Platform Services Controller and then perform the upgrade or migration. For more information, see Upgrade or Migration for vCenter Server Instances with an External Platform Services Controller.
  • For information about how to upgrade vCenter Server and its components, see vCenter Server Upgrade in the ESXi and vCenter Server Documentation.
  • For information about compatibility between vCenter Server and VMware Live Site Recovery versions, see vCenter Server Requirements in the Compatibility Matrices for VMware Live Site Recovery 9.0 at https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Live-Site-Recovery/9.0/rn/compatibility-matrices-for-vmware-live-site-recovery-90/index.html.
  • For information about the order in which to upgrade the components on each site, see Order of Upgrading vSphere and VMware Live Site Recovery Components.
• Obtain the address of the vCenter Server appliance instance for both sites.
• Obtain the vCenter Single Sign-On administrator user name and password for both of the local and remote sites.
• To use VMware Live Site Recovery with vSphere Replication, upgrade vSphere Replication before you upgrade VMware Live Site Recovery Server. After upgrading vSphere Replication, you must restart the VMware Live Site Recovery Server. See Order of Upgrading vSphere and VMware Live Site Recovery Components.
  • For information about how to upgrade vSphere Replication, see Upgrading vSphere Replication in vSphere Replication Administration.
  • For information about compatibility between vSphere Replication and VMware Live Site Recovery versions, see vSphere Replication Requirements in the Compatibility Matrices for VMware Live Site Recovery 9.0 at https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Live-Site-Recovery/9.0/rn/compatibility-matrices-for-vmware-live-site-recovery-90/index.html.
• If you cannot upgrade an existing incompatible version of vSphere Replication, you must unregister vSphere Replication from both vCenter Server instances before you upgrade VMware Live Site Recovery. Incompatible versions of VMware Live Site Recovery and vSphere Replication cause the vSphere Client to stop working.
• If you use custom certificates, obtain an appropriate certificate file. Custom certificates must use at least the SHA1, or preferably SHA256, thumbprint algorithm. This release of VMware Live Site Recovery does not support certificates that use the MD5 thumbprint algorithm. See Requirements When Using Custom SSL/TLS Certificates With VMware Live Site Recovery.
• Important: Verify that there are no pending cleanup operations on recovery plans and that there are no configuration issues for the virtual machines that VMware Live Site Recovery protects.

  • All recovery plans are in the Ready state.
  • The protection status of all the protection groups is OK.
  • The protection status of all the individual virtual machines in the protection groups is OK.
  • The recovery status of all the protection groups is Ready.