You upgrade to Workspace ONE Access 21.08 directly from Workspace ONE Access 20.10.X.
Starting with version 20.01, the VMware Workspace ONE® Access™ service (formerly known as VMware Identity Manager™) is available on-premises solely on Linux. If your existing Linux deployment is a version earlier than 19.03, you must upgrade to 19.03.X first.
For existing deployments, if you prefer a fresh installation to an upgrade, see Installing and Configuring VMware Workspace ONE Access. Remember that a new installation does not preserve your existing configurations.
Supported Upgrade Paths
To upgrade to Workspace ONE Access 21.08, the current version must be Workspace ONE Access 20.10.X.
In 21.08, the Elasticsearch version deployed in Workspace ONE Access was updated to 6.8.12. Because Elasticsearch 6.x upgrade is a two-step process that uses version 5.6 as an intermediate upgrade step to reindex older indices, you must upgrade Workspace ONE Access 19.03.X and Workspace ONE Access 20.01 to Workspace ONE Access 20.10.X before you can upgrade to version 21.08. See Migrating Elasticsearch Data from Workspace ONE Access 19.03.X and 20.01.X before Upgrading to 21.08.
Intended Audience
This information is intended for administrators of Workspace ONE Access. The information is written for experienced Linux and Windows system administrators who are familiar with VMware technologies, particularly vCenter™, ESX™, and vSphere®, networking concepts, Active Directory servers, databases, backup and restore procedures, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), and NTP servers.
Product Version Numbers
This version of Workspace ONE Access is 21.08.
Compatibility with Workspace ONE UEM
VMware Product Interoperability Matrix provides details about the compatibility of current and previous versions of VMware products and components, such as VMware Workspace ONE UEM Console.
Internet Connectivity
You can upgrade from version 20.10.X to version 21.08 using either online or offline upgrade methods.
By default, the Workspace ONE Access appliance uses the VMware web site for the upgrade procedure. This method requires the appliance to have Internet connectivity. You must also configure proxy server settings for the appliance, if applicable.
If your virtual appliance does not have Internet connectivity, you can perform the upgrade offline. For an offline upgrade, you download the upgrade package from My VMware. You can either use the updateoffline.hzn script to perform the upgrade or set up a local Web server to host the upgrade file.
Upgrade Process Options for Workspace ONE Access 21.08
- For your existing deployment, if you deployed a single Workspace ONE Access appliance, upgrade it online or offline as described in Online Upgrading to Workspace ONE Access 21.08 or Upgrading Workspace ONE Access Offline.
Note: Expect some downtime because all services are stopped during the upgrade. Plan the timing of your upgrade accordingly.
- For your existing deployment of 20.10.X, if you deployed multiple virtual appliances in a cluster for failover or high availability, see Upgrade a Workspace ONE Access Cluster.
- To upgrade from Workspace ONE Access with minimal downtime in a multi-data center deployment scenario, see "Upgrading Workspace ONE Access with Minimal Downtime" in Installing and Configuring VMware Workspace ONE Access.
