vSphere Lifecycle Manager Download Sources

You can configure vSphere Lifecycle Manager to download software from the Internet or, in air-gap scenarios, from a UMDS-created shared repository.

Download Updates from the Internet

If you configure vSphere Lifecycle Manager to use the Internet, then the download sources are practically all online depots that you use for downloading software.

vSphere Lifecycle Manager is preconfigured to use the official VMware online depot. In the vSphere Client, you can list additional online depots for vSphere Lifecycle Manager to download additional third-party components from, for example CIM modules.

When vSphere Lifecycle Manager synchronizes to online depots, it downloads only the metadata of the updates. The actual payload is downloaded during staging or remediation.

Download Updates from a UMDS Depot

In vCenter Server deployments without access to the Internet, instead of synchronizing to online depots, you can configure vSphere Lifecycle Manager to download updates from an UMDS-created shared repository. When you configure vSphere Lifecycle Manager to use a UMDS repository, synchronization of the updates metadata is not triggered immediately. The metadata is downloaded according to the configured download schedule or when you initiate the download. When the default download source for vSphere Lifecycle Manager is a UMDS repository, only the metadata is stored and displayed in the vSphere Client. The actual payload is downloaded during staging or remediation.

Depot Overrides

In ROBO scenarios, you can configure vSphere Lifecycle Manager to use a local depot with updates for a particular cluster instead of the depots that all clusters in that vCenter Server instance use by default.

For more information, see Manage Depot Overrides for a Cluster.