vSAN creates system managed baselines that you can use with Update Manager to upgrade the hosts in vSAN clusters to the latest supported ESXi version, patch the hosts with critical patches, and install drivers.

The system managed baselines appear automatically in Update Manager Compliance view if you are using vSAN clusters that contain hosts of ESXi version 6.0 Update 2 and later. If your vSphere environment does not contain any vSAN clusters, no system managed baselines are generated.

System baselines can be any of the following types:
  • Upgrade baseline that consists of the latest supported ESXi upgrade image for your vSAN cluster.
  • Patch baseline that consists of recommended critical patches for the ESXi hosts in your vSAN cluster.
  • Driver baseline that consists of recommended drivers for the ESXi hosts in your vSAN cluster.

You cannot edit or delete a system managed baseline. You also cannot add it to custom baseline groups.

A combination between a patch, a driver, or an upgrade system managed baseline is automatically bundled in a vSAN system baseline group. For each vSAN cluster in the vSphere inventory, Update Manager displays a single system baseline group.

Update Manager runs automatic check once every 24 hours and downloads any new critical patches, drivers, or upgrade images related to vSAN that are available on VMware Cloud. VMware Cloud stores the Hardware Compatibility List for vSAN and the vSAN release catalog. After refreshing the baselines, Update Manager automatically performs a scan operation on the vSAN clusters against the updated system baselines.

Operations such as adding and removing hosts from an existing vSAN cluster also trigger refresh of the attached system baseline, followed by a scan operation of the cluster.

If the vSAN cluster is in compliant state, no further actions are needed.

If the vSAN cluster is in non-compliant state against the system baseline, Update Manager does not automatically initiate remediation. You decide when to remediate the cluster, and can start the process manually.

System Requirements for Using vSAN System Managed Baselines

  • vCenter Server 6.5 Update 1 that runs on Windows.
  • Update Manager 6.5 Update 1 that runs Windows and is connected to vCenter Server 6.5 Update 1.
  • vSAN cluster that contains hosts of ESXi version 6.0 Update 2 and later.
  • Constant access of the Update Manager host machine to the Internet.
  • Account in the My VMware portal (my.vmware.com) to access VMware Cloud.