vSphere Lifecycle Manager and vSphere IaaS control plane

You can enable vSphere IaaS control plane on vSphere clusters that you manage with a single vSphere Lifecycle Manager image.

vSphere Lifecycle Manager and vSphere IaaS control plane with vSphere Networking

You start using vSphere IaaS control plane with vSphere networking on a cluster that uses a single vSphere Lifecycle Manager image by enabling the cluster for Workload Management. A cluster enabled for Workload Management is called a Supervisor. You enable a cluster for Workload Management from the Workload Management user interface in the vSphere Client.

Requirements

Verify that all ESXi hosts in the Supervisor are version 7.0 Update 1 and later.
Verify that the ESXi hosts in the Supervisor are assigned the required license.
Verify that vCenter Server is version 7.0 Update 1 and later.
Note: You can manage the lifecycle of a Supervisor with either vSphere Lifecycle Manager baselines or vSphere Lifecycle Manager images. However, you cannot convert a Supervisor that uses vSphere Lifecycle Manager baselines to a Supervisor that uses vSphere Lifecycle Manager images. To use vSphere Lifecycle Manager images for a Supervisor, you must first switch the cluster which is not yet enabled for Workload Management to using images and then enable vSphere IaaS control plane on that cluster.
Review the configuration requirements and additional information in Working with vSphere Lifecycle Manager chapter in the Maintaining vSphere IaaS Control Plane documentation.

Supported Workflows

The following workflows are supported for any Supervisor that uses vSphere Lifecycle Manager images and is configured to use the vSphere networking stack.

You can upgrade a Supervisor to the latest version of vSphere IaaS control plane. You can also upgrade the ESXi version of the hosts in the Supervisor.
You perform the upgrade of the Supervisor from the Workload Management user interface in the vSphere Client.
You upgrade the ESXi version of the hosts in the Supervisor by remediating the cluster from the vSphere Lifecycle Manager user interface in the vSphere Client.

Note: You cannot perform a simultaneous upgrade of both vSphere IaaS control plane and ESXi.
You deactivate vSphere IaaS control plane from the Workload Management user interface in the vSphere Client.You can deactivate vSphere IaaS control plane on a cluster that uses a single vSphere Lifecycle Manager image.
When you deactivate vSphere IaaS control plane, you can use the cluster for traditional virtual machine workloads.
You can add and remove hosts to and from a cluster that has both vSphere IaaS control plane and vSphere Lifecycle Manager enabled.
For more information about adding and removing hosts to and from a cluster, see the vCenter Server and Host Management documentation.

For detailed information about working with a Supervisor that uses a single image, see the Working with vSphere Lifecycle Manager section in the Maintaining vSphere IaaS Control Plane documentation.

Upgrading the vSphere IaaS control plane Components in a vSAN Cluster

To upgrade the vSphere IaaS control plane components installed on the hosts in a cluster, you must remediate the cluster against a vSphere Lifecycle Manager image that contains the latest version of those vSphere IaaS control plane components.

In a vSAN cluster with configured fault domains, vSphere Lifecycle Manager recognizes the configured fault domains for the cluster and performs the solution upgrade in accordance with the fault domain configuration. If the vSAN cluster is a stretched cluster, you must upgrade the witness host separately, after vSphere Lifecycle Manager finishes remediating all fault domains. For more information about remediating vSAN stretched clusters and vSAN clusters configured with fault domains, see Using vSphere Lifecycle Manager Images to Remediate vSAN Clusters with Configured Fault Domains. For more information about stretched clusters, see the vSAN Planning and Deployment documentation.

Scalability

For information about the scalability that vSphere Lifecycle Manager supports, visit the VMware Configuration Maximums Matrix at https://configmax.vmware.com/.

vSphere Lifecycle Manager and vSphere IaaS control plane with NSX Networking

You can start using vSphere IaaS control plane with NSX networking on a cluster that uses a single vSphere Lifecycle Manager image by enabling the cluster for Workload Management. A cluster enabled with Workload Management is called a Supervisor. You enable the cluster for Workload Management from the Workload Management user interface in the vSphere Client. Upon enabling Workload Management on a Supervisor configured with the NSX networking stack, vSphere Lifecycle Manager installs the Spherelet VIB on every ESXi host in the cluster.

Requirements

Verify that all ESXi hosts in the Supervisor are version 7.0 Update 2 or later.
Verify that all ESXi hosts in the Supervisor are assigned the required license.
Verify that vCenter Server is version 7.0 Update 2 or later.
Note: You can manage the lifecycle of a Supervisor with either vSphere Lifecycle Manager baselines or vSphere Lifecycle Manager images. However, you cannot convert a Supervisor that uses vSphere Lifecycle Manager baselines to a Supervisor that uses vSphere Lifecycle Manager images. To use vSphere Lifecycle Manager images for a Supervisor, you must first switch the cluster which is not yet enabled for Workload Management to using images and then enable vSphere IaaS control plane on that cluster.
Review the configuration requirements and additional information in the Working with vSphere Lifecycle Manager chapter in the Maintaining vSphere IaaS Control Plane documentation.

Supported Workflows

The following workflows are supported for any Supervisor that uses vSphere Lifecycle Manager images and is configured to use the NSX networking stack.

You can upgrade a Supervisor to the latest version of vSphere IaaS control plane. You can also upgrade the ESXi version of the hosts in the Supervisor.
You perform the upgrade of the Supervisor from the Workload Management user interface in the vSphere Client. During upgrade, vSphere Lifecycle Manager upgrades the Spherelet VIB on the hosts to make it compatible with the new version of vSphere IaaS control plane or the new version of ESXi.
You upgrade the ESXi version of the hosts in the Supervisor by remediating the cluster from the vSphere Lifecycle Manager user interface in the vSphere Client.

Note: You cannot perform a simultaneous upgrade of both vSphere IaaS control plane and ESXi.
You deactivate vSphere IaaS control plane from the Workload Management user interface in the vSphere Client.You can deactivate vSphere IaaS control plane on a cluster that uses a single vSphere Lifecycle Manager image.
When you deactivate vSphere IaaS control plane, you can use the cluster for traditional virtual machine workloads.
You can add and remove hosts to and from a Supervisor that uses vSphere Lifecycle Manager images.
When you add a host to a Supervisor that you manage with a single vSphere Lifecycle Manager image, vSphere Lifecycle Manager automatically installs the Spherelet VIB on the newly added host.
When you remove a host from a Supervisor that you manage with a single vSphere Lifecycle Manager image, vSphere Lifecycle Manager removes the Spherelet VIB from the host. vSphere Lifecycle Manager also deletes the Spherelet VIB from a host that you move to another Supervisor.
For more information about adding and removing hosts to and from a cluster, see the vCenter Server and Host Management documentation.

For detailed information about working with a Supervisor that uses a single image, see the Working with vSphere Lifecycle Manager chapter in the Maintaining vSphere IaaS Control Plane documentation.

Upgrading the vSphere IaaS control plane Components in a vSAN Cluster

Scalability

For information about the scalability that vSphere Lifecycle Manager supports, visit the VMware Configuration Maximums Matrix at https://configmax.vmware.com/.