System Requirements for Using vSphere Lifecycle Manager

Depending on whether you want to use baselines or images for software lifecycle management, you must comply with a different set of requirements. To achieve your goals, you must also know the specifics in behavior and limitations that vSphere Lifecycle Manager has.

Table 1. System Requirements for Using vSphere Lifecycle Manager

Scenario	Requirements
Using a single image to manage a cluster.	All ESXi hosts in the cluster must be of version 7.0 and later. All ESXi hosts in the cluster must be stateful. A stateful install is one in which the host boots from a disk. All ESXi hosts in the cluster must be from the same vendor and with identical hardware. Different generations and models of servers need different software drivers, which implies that you must set up different vSphere Lifecycle Manager images to manage each generation or model. However, with vSphere Lifecycle Manager, you use one single image for the entire cluster. Also, vSphere Lifecycle Manager does not detect and handle the hardware differences between the hosts in the cluster. You can use a vSphere Lifecycle Manager image to manage a heterogeneous cluster only if the vSphere Lifecycle Manager image for the cluster includes vendor customization, for example a vendor or firmware add-on, that can address and handle the hardware differences across the hosts in the cluster, which is a rare scenario. The cluster must include only integrated solutions. For example: VMware vSAN™ VMware vSphere® High Availability (HA) vSphere with Tanzu NSX-T Data Center
Using baselines and baseline groups to manage a cluster.	To use baselines for ESXi host patching operations, vSphere Lifecycle Manager works with ESXi 6.5, ESXi 6.7, and ESXi 7.0. To use baselines for ESXi host upgrade operations, vSphere Lifecycle Manager works withESXi 6.5, ESXi 6.7, and their respective Update releases.
Switching from using baselines to using a single image to manage a cluster.	The cluster must meet the requirements for using an image. The cluster must be eligible for the transition. For more information about the Check cluster's eligibility to be managed with a single image task, see Cluster Eligibility to Use vSphere Lifecycle Manager Images.
Upgrading virtual machine hardware and VMware Tools	For VMware Tools and virtual machine hardware upgrade operations, vSphere Lifecycle Manager works with ESXi 6.5, ESXi 6.7, and ESXi 7.0.