You can upgrade vCenter Server appliance 7.0 or 6.7 to version 8.0. All the installation files that are necessary for the upgrade are included in the vCenter Server installer, which you can download from the VMware website.

The upgrade of the vCenter Server appliance is a migration of the old version to the new version, which includes deploying a new vCenter Server appliance of version 8.0. You can deploy the new appliance on an ESXi host 6.7or later, or on the inventory of a vCenter Server instance 6.7 or later. You assign a temporary IP address to the new appliance to facilitate the configuration and services data migration from the old appliance to the newly deployed appliance. After the migration, the IP address and host name of the old appliance are applied to the new upgraded appliance of version 8.0. At the end of the upgrade, the temporary IP address is released and the old appliance is powered off.

Version 8.0 of vCenter Server uses an embedded PostgreSQL database. During the upgrade, you must select a storage size for the new appliance that is suitable for the database size.

vCenter Server 8.0 uses an embedded vSphere Lifecycle Manager service that allows you to perform centralized and simplified lifecycle management of clusters with ESXi 7.0 hosts. vSphere Lifecycle Manager in vSphere 8.0 includes the functionality that Update Manager provided in earlier vSphere releases for host upgrade and patching operations, and upgrade of virtual machine hardware and VMware Tools.

If you are upgrading a vCenter Server appliance or migrating a vCenter Server that use an external Update Manager instance that runs on Windows, in vSphere 8.0 the external Update Manager instance is migrated to the embedded vSphere Lifecycle Manager extension service of the new, upgraded vCenter Server appliance.

If you are upgrading a vCenter Server appliance that uses an embedded VMware Update Manager instance, in vSphere 7.0 the embedded VMware Update Manager instance is upgraded to the embedded vSphere Lifecycle Manager extension service of the new upgraded vCenter Server appliance. The embedded VMware vSphere Update Manager Extension uses the embedded PostgreSQL database. Before the upgrade, you must run the Migration Assistant on the source Update Manager instance.

For information about the software included in the vCenter Server 8.0, see vCenter Server Installation and Setup.

Note: vCenter Server deployments using an external Platform Services Controller will not be supported in a future vSphere release. For more information, see Decommission the Platform Services Controller and Knowledge Base article KB 60229. For topologies with external Platform Services Controller instances, you must first converge the external Platform Services Controller to an embedded Platform Services Controller and then perform the upgrade. To learn more about converging a vCenter Server deployment using an external Platform Services Controller into a vCenter Server appliance, see Knowledge Base article KB 68137. After a successful upgrade, the external Platform Services Controller is powered off can be removed from your vSphere inventory.

The vCenter Server installer contains executable files for both GUI and CLI upgrades which you can use alternatively.

  • The GUI upgrade is a two stage process. The first stage is a Deployment wizard that deploys the OVA file of the new appliance on the target ESXi host or vCenter Server instance. After the OVA deployment finishes, you are redirected to the second stage of the process that sets up and transfers the services and configuration data from the old appliance to the newly deployed appliance.
  • The CLI upgrade method involves running a CLI command against a JSON file that you previously prepared. The CLI installer parses the configuration parameters and their values from the JSON file and generates an OVF Tool command that deploys the new appliance. The OVF Tool command also transfers services and configuration data and from the old appliance to the new appliance.

For information about the vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller appliance upgrade requirements, see System Requirements for the New vCenter Server Appliance.

Important: If the appliance that you are upgrading is configured in a mixed IPv4 and IPv6 environment, only the IPv4 settings are preserved. For information on the transfer of networking configuration settings for mixed mode IPv4 and IPv6 deployments, see Mixed IPv4 and IPv6 Upgrade and Migration.

If you are deploying the vCenter Server appliance directly on an ESXi host, non-ephemeral distributed virtual port groups are not supported and are not shown. After the upgrade, you can manually connect the appliance to the original non-ephemeral distributed virtual port group. This is not a limitation when deploying the appliance through a vCenter Server, and you can deploy to ephemeral or non-ephemeral distributed virtual port groups.

To upgrade vCenter Server appliance version 6.5or earlier, you must first upgrade to version 6.7 or 7.0and then upgrade to version 8.0. For information about upgrading vCenter Server appliance 6.5 to version 6.7, see the VMware vSphere 6.7 documentation. For information about upgrading vCenter Server appliance 6.5 to version 7.0, see the VMware vSphere 7.0 documentation. For information on the upgrade compatibility of vCenter Server, see the VMware Compatibility Guide.

For information about deploying the vCenter Server, see vCenter Server Installation and Setup.

For information about configuring the vCenter Server, see vCenter Server Configuration.