When you upgrade the vCenter Server appliance, a Supervisor Cluster upgrade is automatically triggered.

vSphere with Tanzu components include components in the vCenter Server, Kubernetes components, and ESXi components. When you upgrade vCenter Server, only the vSphere with Tanzu components on the vCenter Server are upgraded. You must manually upgrade the Kubernetes components, and ESXi components.

With the auto upgrade feature, when you upgrade vCenter Server, an upgrade of the Supervisor Cluster is triggered.

Note: You cannot configure the auto upgrade. The upgrade is triggered automatically depending on the compatibility between the Kubernetes versions of the Supervisor Cluster and vCenter Server.
When you attempt to upgrade the vCenter Server, prechecks are run to check the compatibility between the Kubernetes versions of the Supervisor Cluster and vCenter Server. Warnings are displayed in the following scenarios:
  • The Kubernetes components of the target vCenter Server are one version higher than the Kubernetes version of the Supervisor Cluster. In this scenario, when you proceed with the vCenter Server upgrade, the Kubernetes version of the Supervisor Cluster is automatically upgraded to match the Kubernetes version of vCenter Server.

    For example, the Kubernetes version of the active Supervisor Cluster version is 1.22 and the supported Kubernetes versions on the target vCenter Server are 1.23, 1.24, and 1.25. In this case, upon vCenter Server upgrade, the Supervisor Cluster is also upgraded to 1.23.

  • The Kubernetes components of the target vCenter Server are higher than the Kubernetes version of the Supervisor Cluster by two versions or more. In this scenario, you cannot upgrade the vCenter Server. To be able to upgrade vCenter Server, first you must manually upgrade the Kubernetes version of the Supervisor Cluster to at least one version lower of the Kubernetes version of vCenter Server.

    For example, the Kubernetes version of the active Supervisor Cluster is lower than or equal to 1.22 and supported Kubernetes versions on the target vCenter Server are 1.24, 1.25, and 1.26. To upgrade vCenter Server, you must first upgrade the Supervisor Cluster to at least 1.23, or ideally 1.24.

  • The Supervisor Cluster license has expired. If the Supervisor Cluster has a license other than an evaluation license, irrespective of the license status (either expired or active), you can upgrade the Supervisor Cluster and all operations are intact. If the Supervisor Cluster has an evaluation license and it has expired, you cannot upgrade or update the Supervisor Cluster.

For a list of vCenter Server releases, see the following KB article: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2143838.