Working with the vSphere Lifecycle Manager Depot

The vSphere Lifecycle Manager depot is the source of software updates for vSphere Lifecycle Manager. Conceptually, the vSphere Lifecycle Manager depot represents all software available for consumption to vSphere Lifecycle Manager.

The vSphere Lifecycle Manager depot is a local depot on the vCenter Server machine. It contains all the content from the online and offline depots that you use with vSphere Lifecycle Manager.

You can work with vSphere Lifecycle Manager only if the vSphere Lifecycle Manager depot contains software packages. For example, ESXi base images, vendor add-ons, third-party components, and legacy patches and updates. For more information about ESXi base images, vendor add-ons, components, and patches, see Bulletins, Components, Add-Ons, and ESXi Base Images.

You control how the vSphere Lifecycle Manager depot gets populated with software. You can configure vSphere Lifecycle Manager to download updates from online depots, or a UMDS-created shared repository. Alternatively, you can use offline depots to import updates into the vSphere Lifecycle Manager depot. For more information about the different types of depots that vSphere Lifecycle Manager can use, see vSphere Lifecycle Manager Download Sources.