Staging lets you download the patches and extensions from the vSphere Lifecycle Manager repository to ESXi hosts, without applying the patches and extensions immediately. Staging patches and extensions speeds up the remediation process, because the patches and extensions are already available locally on the hosts.
To stage patches or extensions to hosts, first attach a patch or extension baseline or a baseline group containing patches and extensions to the host. Staging patches and extensions does not require that hosts enter maintenance mode.
With the vSphere Client, you can stage a single baseline, multiple baselines, or baseline groups to a single host or a group of hosts in a container object.
Some limitations exist depending on the compliance status of the patches or extensions that you want to stage.
Patches cannot be staged if they are obsoleted by other patches in the baselines or baseline groups for the same stage operation. vSphere Lifecycle Manager stages only the patches that it can install in a subsequent remediation process, based on the current compliance status of the host. If a patch is obsoleted by patches in the same selected patch set, the obsoleted patch is not staged.
If a patch is in conflict with the patches in the vSphere Lifecycle Manager depot and is not in conflict with a host, after a compliance check, vSphere Lifecycle Manager reports this patch as a conflicting one. You can still stage the patch to the host and after the stage operation, vSphere Lifecycle Manager reports this patch as staged.
During the stage operation, vSphere Lifecycle Manager performs prescan and postscan operations and updates the compliance status of the baseline.
For more information about the different compliance statuses that an update might have, see Compliance States for Updates.
After you stage patches or extensions to hosts, you must remediate the hosts against all staged patches or extensions.
After remediation finishes, the host deletes all staged patches or extensions from its cache regardless of whether they were applied during the remediation. The compliance status of the patches or extensions that were staged but not applied to the hosts reverts from Staged to its previous value.
