Remediation is the process in which Update Manager applies patches, extensions, and upgrades to ESXi hosts and virtual machines after a scan is complete.

Remediation makes the selected vSphere objects compliant with patch, extension, and upgrade baselines.

As with scanning, you can remediate single hosts or virtual machines. You can also initiate remediation on a folder, a cluster, or a data center level.

Update Manager supports remediation for the following inventory objects:

  • Powered on, suspended, or powered off virtual machines and templates for VMware Tools and virtual machine hardware upgrade.
  • ESXi hosts for patch, extension, and upgrade remediation.

You can remediate the objects in your vSphere inventory by using either manual remediation or scheduled remediation. For more information about manual and scheduled remediation, see Remediating vSphere Objects.

Remediating Hosts

Update Manager 6.7 supports upgrade from ESXi 6.0.x and ESXi 6.5.x to ESXi 6.7.

Important: If you enable the setting from the ESX Host/Cluster Settings page of the Configuration tab, or from the Remediate wizard, you can patch PXE booted ESXi hosts.

After you upload ESXi images, upgrades for ESXi hosts are managed through baselines and baseline groups.

Typically, if the update requires it, hosts are put into maintenance mode before remediation. Virtual machines cannot run when a host is in maintenance mode. To ensure a consistent user experience, vCenter Server migrates the virtual machines to other hosts within a cluster before the host is put in maintenance mode. vCenter Server can migrate the virtual machines if the cluster is configured for vMotion and if VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) and VMware Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC) are enabled. EVC is not a prerequisite for vMotion. EVC guarantees that the CPUs of the hosts are compatible. For other containers or individual hosts that are not in a cluster, migration with vMotion cannot be performed.

Important: After you have upgraded your host to ESXi 6.7, you cannot roll back to your version ESXi 6.0.x or ESXi 6.5.x software. Back up your host configuration before performing an upgrade. If the upgrade fails, you can reinstall the ESXi 6.0.x or ESXi 6.5.x software that you upgraded from, and restore your host configuration. For more information about backing up and restoring your ESXi configuration, see vSphere Upgrade.

Remediation of ESXi 6.0 and 6.5 hosts to their respective ESXi update releases is a patching process, while the remediation of ESXi hosts from version 6.0 or 6.5 to 6.7 is an upgrade process.

Remediating Virtual Machines

You can upgrade VMware Tools, and the virtual hardware of virtual machines to a later version. Upgrades for virtual machines are managed through the Update Manager default virtual machine upgrade baselines.

Orchestrated Upgrades

With Update Manager, you can perform orchestrated upgrades of hosts and virtual machines. With orchestrated upgrades, you can upgrade hosts and virtual machines in your vSphere inventory by using baseline groups.

You can perform an orchestrated upgrade of hosts by using a baseline group that contains a single host upgrade baseline and multiple patch or extension baselines. Update Manager first upgrades the hosts and then applies the patch or extension baselines.

You can perform an orchestrated upgrade of virtual machines by using a virtual machine baseline group that contains the following baselines:

  • VM Hardware Upgrade to Match Host
  • VMware Tools Upgrade to Match Host

You can use orchestrated upgrades to upgrade the virtual hardware and VMware Tools of virtual machines in the inventory at the same time. The VMware Tools upgrade baseline runs first, followed by the virtual machine hardware upgrade baseline.

Orchestrated upgrades can be performed at a cluster, folder, or a data center level.