By upgrading your vSphere Bitfusion cluster, you keep the current configuration data and monitoring statistics.

vSphere Bitfusion supports a multi-version server and client environment.
  • All servers in a cluster must run the same version of vSphere Bitfusion.
  • The clients in a cluster can use different supported versions of vSphere Bitfusion.
  • The version of a client must be the same as the version of the servers or earlier.
Note: When upgrading your vSphere Bitfusion environment, first upgrade the servers and then the clients.

For more information about the upgrade compatibility of vSphere Bitfusion servers and clients, see VMware Interoperability Matrix.

Upgrade a vSphere Bitfusion cluster to the latest version

To use the latest vSphere Bitfusion version and retain your current cluster configuration and monitoring data, you can upgrade your vSphere Bitfusion cluster.

To upgrade your cluster, you must upgrade the servers in your vSphere Bitfusion environment. You must back up the environment, deploy new server virtual machines (VMs) with the latest version of the vSphere Bitfusion appliance, and restore the backup.

vSphere Bitfusion Clients Upgrade

You can use your current vSphere Bitfusion 2.0 and later clients or upgrade the clients to the latest version of vSphere Bitfusion. To upgrade a client, you must install the latest package on your Ubuntu, CentOS, or Red Hat Linux operating system. The client version can be the same as the version of your vSphere Bitfusion servers or earlier. For more information, see How to install the vSphere Bitfusion client.

vSphere Bitfusion Servers Upgrade

Figure 1. vSphere Bitfusion Upgrade Workflow
Workflow diagram of the vSphere Bitfusion upgrade process.
  1. By using the vSphere Bitfusion plug-in, create and download a backup of your current vSphere Bitfusion cluster.

    For more information, see Back up a Bitfusion Cluster in the Using VMware vSphere Bitfusion.

  2. From the downloaded bitfusionbackup.tar.gz archive file, open the manifest.json file, and find the servers section. The section includes information about the servers in your vSphere Bitfusion cluster at the time of the backup.

    Take a note of the host ID, hostname, and number of GPUs for each server.

    For example, the host ID of the following server is 6a2f4e80-70d8-4c51-bf10-00284f3ed2c6, the hostname is bitfusion-server-3.5.0-5, and the server has one GPU installed. 
    "servers": [
        {
            "id": "6a2f4e80-70d8-4c51-bf10-00284f3ed2c6",
            "hostname": "bitfusion-server-3.5.0-5",
            "ip": "10.202.8.209",
            "port": "56001",
            "address": "10.202.8.209:56001",
            "mode": "manager",
            "health": "PASS",
            "num_devices": 1,
            "lastseen": "2020-10-14T21:29:38Z",
            "license": {
                "type": "vcenter-license",
                "name": "vSphere 7 Enterprise Plus",
                "license-id": "example",
                "key": "example",
                "expiry": "2025-09-30T00:00:00Z"
            }
  3. Power off all vSphere Bitfusion servers in the cluster.
  4. Install a new primary vSphere Bitfusion server.
    1. Deploy a new primary vSphere Bitfusion server VM by using the latest vSphere Bitfusion OVA template.

      For more information, see How to install the primary vSphere Bitfusion server.

      During the deployment process, enter the same hostname as your old primary vSphere Bitfusionserver uses.

    2. In the settings of the new VM, add the same number of GPUs as your old primary vSphere Bitfusion server uses.
    3. In the advanced settings of the new VM, add a guestinfo.bitfusion.server.host-id configuration parameter. The parameter value must match the host ID of your old primary server, that is listed in the manifest.json file.

      For more information, see Edit Configuration File Parameters in the vSphere Virtual Machine Administration documentation.

    4. Power on the server and wait until the vSphere Bitfusion Plug-in is registered with vCenter Server.
  5. By using the vSphere Bitfusion plug-in, restore the backup of your old vSphere Bitfusion cluster to your new cluster.

    For more information, see Restore a Bitfusion Cluster in the Using VMware vSphere Bitfusion.

  6. For each subsequent vSphere Bitfusion server in your cluster, perform the following steps.
    1. Deploy a new server VM by using the vSphere Bitfusion plug-in.

      During the deployment process, enter the hostname and host ID that are listed in the manifest.json for the old corresponding vSphere Bitfusion server. For more information, see How to install subsequent vSphere Bitfusion servers.

    2. In the settings of the new VM, add the same number of GPUs as the old corresponding vSphere Bitfusion server uses.
    3. In the settings of the new VM, add a guestinfo.bitfusion.server.host-id configuration parameter. The parameter value must match the host ID of the old corresponding server, that is listed in the manifest.json file.
    4. Power on the VM. You must power on multiple VMs in a sequential order.
  7. Delete the old vSphere Bitfusion server VMs.