After you upgrade the SDDC components that provide infrastructure management, upgrade the vSphere Update Manager Download Service (UMDS) instances followed by the ESXi hosts, VMware Tools, and vSphere Distributed Switch instances for the management clusters in Region A and Region B.

Upgrading the remaining components of vSphere in the management clusters is a multi-step operation in which you must upgrade the UMDS instances and management ESXi hosts. Then, you repeat these operations in Region B. This sequence poses the least impact on your ability to perform disaster recovery operations in the SDDC using the management components and with minimal operational impact to your tenant workloads and provisioning operations.

Table 1. Management ESXi Hosts and UMDS Nodes in the SDDC

Region

Cluster Name

IP Address

Fully Qualified Domain Name

vSAN Datastore

Region A

sfo01-m01-mgmt01

192.168.31.67

sfo01umds01.sfo01.rainpole.local

-

172.16.11.101

sfo01m01esx01.sfo01.rainpole.local

sfo01-m01-vsan01

172.16.11.102

sfo01m01esx02.sfo01.rainpole.local

172.16.11.103

sfo01m01esx03.sfo01.rainpole.local

172.16.11.104

sfo01m01esx04.sfo01.rainpole.local

172.16.11.1xx

sfo01m01esxxx.sfo01.rainpole.local

Region A

sfo01-m01-mgmt01

172.16.21.101

sfo02m01esx01.sfo01.rainpole.local

sfo01-m01-vsan01

172.16.21.102

sfo02m01esx02.sfo01.rainpole.local

sfo01-m01-vsan01

172.16.21.103

sfo02m01esx03.sfo01.rainpole.local

sfo01-m01-vsan01

172.16.21.104

sfo02m01esx04.sfo01.rainpole.local

sfo01-m01-vsan01

172.16.21.1xx

sfo02m01esxxx.sfo01.rainpole.local

sfo01-m01-vsan01

Region B

lax01-m01-mgmt01

192.168.32.67

lax01umds01.lax01.rainpole.local

-

172.17.11.101

lax01m01esx01.lax01.rainpole.local

lax01-m01-vsan01

172.17.11.102

lax01m01esx02.lax01.rainpole.local

172.17.11.103

lax01m01esx03.lax01.rainpole.local

172.17.11.104

lax01m01esx04.lax01.rainpole.local

172.17.11.1xx

lax01m01esxxx.lax01.rainpole.local
Table 2. Management Virtual Machines for VMware Tools Remediation in the SDDC

Region

Cluster Name

Folder

Role

Virtual Machine Name

Region A

sfo01-m01-mgmt01

sfo01-m01fd-mgmt

Update Manager Download Service

sfo01umds01

sfo01-m01fd-vra

vRealize Automation IaaS Web Server

vra01iws01a

vra01iws01b

vRealize Automation IaaS Manager Service

vra01ims01a

vra01ims01b

vRealize Automation IaaS DEM Workers

vra01dem01a

vra01dem01b

Microsoft SQL Server

vra01mssql01

sfo01-m01fd-vraias

vRealize Automation IaaS Proxy Agent

sfo01ias01a

sfo01ias01b

Region B

lax01-m01-mgmt01

lax01-m01fd-mgmt

Update Manager Download Service

lax01umds01

lax01-m01fd-mgmt

vRealize Automation IaaS Proxy Agent

lax01ias01a

lax01ias01b

Prerequisites

  • For the vSphere Update Manager Download Service instances

    • Verify that you have a current backup of each Update Manager Download Service virtual machine.

    • Download the vCenter Server Appliance installer VMWare-VCSA-all-6.7.x-build_number.iso file to a shared datastore for mounting to the virtual appliances. If you have space on your NFS datastore, upload the file there.

    • Review the release notes of the vSphere Update Manager version in this validated design.

  • For ESXi hosts and vSAN clusters

    • Verify that the system hardware complies with the ESXi requirements. See VMware Compatibility Guide. Check for the following compatibility areas:

      • System compatibility

      • I/O compatibility with network and host bus adapter (HBA) cards

      • Storage compatibility

      • Backup software compatibility

      • Compatibility of the firmware for the network and host bus adapter (HBA) cards (Upgrade the firmware accordingly.)

      • BIOS compatibility (Upgrade the BIOS on the ESXi hosts accordingly.)

    • To have management workloads automatically migrated from hosts while they are being upgraded, verify that vSphere DRS on the management cluster is set to Fully Automated during the upgrade operations.

    • Allocate 4 GB of free disk space on each host for the upgrade.

    • Review the release notes of the ESXi version and the vSAN version in this validated design.

  • For VMware Tools

    • Verify that all ESXi hosts in the management cluster have been upgraded.

    • Verify that the vRealize Automation environment has been quiesced of all activities, including but not limited to, users ordering new virtual machines and third-party integration that might automate the ordering of new virtual machines.

    • Verify that the maintenance window is in a time period in which no backup jobs are running or scheduled to run.

What to do next

  • Verify that the Update Manager Download Service is operational after the upgrade.

  • Verify that the management ESXi hosts are operational after the upgrade.

  • Verify that the management virtual machines are operational after the upgrade.