Upgrade a vCenter Server Appliance 7.0 or 6.7 HA Cluster with an Embedded Platform Services Controller by Using the GUI

You can use the GUI installer to perform an interactive upgrade of a vCenter Server appliance 6.7 or 7.0 in a High Availability (HA) cluster that uses an embedded vCenter Single Sign-On or Platform Services Controller to vCenter Server appliance 8.0. You must run the GUI upgrade from a Windows, Linux, or Macintosh computer that is in the same network as the appliance that you want to upgrade.

You can deploy version 8.0 of the vCenter Server appliance on hosts that are running ESXi 6.7 or later and on vCenter Server instances 6.7 or later.

A vCenter HA cluster consists of three vCenter Server appliances that act as Active, Passive, and Witness nodes. The Active vCenter HA node is upgraded using a migration-based upgrade while preserving the existing configuration.

Prerequisites

• See Prerequisites for Upgrading vCenter Server High Availability Environments.
• See Required Information for Upgrading a vCenter Server Appliance 6.7 or 7.0.

Stage 1 - Deploy the OVA File of the New vCenter High Availability Cluster

In stage 1 of the upgrade process, you deploy the OVA file for the new vCenter Server appliance.

Prerequisites

Ensure that your environment meets the prerequisites for upgrading a vCenter HA cluster. See Prerequisites for Upgrading vCenter Server High Availability Environments.

Procedure

1. In the vCenter Server installer, navigate to the vcsa-ui-installer directory, go to the subdirectory for your operating system, and run the installer executable file.
   • For Windows OS, go to the win32 subdirectory, and run the installer.exe file.
   • For Linux OS, go to the lin64 subdirectory, and run the installer file.
   • For Mac OS, go to the mac subdirectory, and run the Installer.app file.
2. On the Home page, click Upgrade.
3. Review the Introduction page to understand the upgrade process and click Next.
4. Connect to the source appliance that you want to upgrade. This appliance is the Active vCenter HA node.
   1. Enter the information about the source vCenter Server appliance that you want to upgrade, and click Connect to Source.

      Option	Action
      Appliance FQDN or IP address	Enter the IP address or FQDN of the Active vCenter HA node that you want to upgrade.
      Appliance HTTPS port	The default value (443) is displayed and cannot be edited.

   2. Enter the information about the vCenter Single Sign-On administrator and root user.

      Option	Action
      SSO user name	Enter the vCenter Single Sign-On administrator user name. Important: The user must be administrator@ your_domain_name.
      SSO password	Enter the password of the vCenter Single Sign-On administrator.
      Appliance (OS) root password	Enter the password of the root user.

   3. Enter the information about the source vCenter Server instance on which resides the vCenter Server appliance that you want to upgrade and click Next.

      Option	Description
      Source server or host name	IP address or FQDN of the Active node. The Active node must be configured as the vCenter HA node.
      HTTPS port	If the vCenter Server instance uses a custom HTTPS port, change the default value. The default value is 443.
      User name	User name of a user with administrative privileges on the ESXi host or vCenter Server instance.
      Password	Password of the user with administrative privileges on the ESXi host or vCenter Server instance.

5. Verify that the certificate warning displays the SHA1 thumbprints of the SSL certificates that are installed on the source appliance and its source server, and click Yes to accept the certificate thumbprints.
6. If vCenter HA is successfully detected, the target appliance is set to the manager of the source appliance. Click OK.
   The appliance deployment target information is populated.
7. On the Set up target appliance VM page, enter a name for the target vCenter Server appliance, set the password for the root user, and click Next.
   The password must contain at least eight characters, a number, uppercase and lowercase letters, and a special character, for example, an exclamation mark (!), hash key (#), at sign (@), or brackets (()).

   Note: The root password of the source is not transferred to the target appliance.
8. Select the deployment size for the new vCenter Server appliance for your vSphere inventory.

   Deployment Size Option	Description
   Tiny	Deploys an appliance with 2 vCPUs and 14 GB of memory. Suitable for environments with up to 10 hosts or 100 virtual machines
   Small	Deploys an appliance with 4 vCPUs and 21 GB of memory. Suitable for environments with up to 100 hosts or 1,000 virtual machines
   Medium	Deploys an appliance with 8 vCPUs and 30 GB of memory. Suitable for environments with up to 400 hosts or 4,000 virtual machines
   Large	Deploys an appliance with 16 vCPUs and 39 GB of memory. Suitable for environments with up to 1,000 hosts or 10,000 virtual machines
   X-Large	Deploys an appliance with 24 vCPUs and 58 GB of memory. Suitable for environments with up to 2,500 hosts or 45,000 virtual machines

9. Select the storage size for the new vCenter Server appliance and click Next.
   Important: You must consider the storage size of the appliance that you are upgrading and the database size if external.

   Storage Size Option	Description for Tiny Deployment Size	Description for Small Deployment Size	Description for Medium Deployment Size	Description for Large Deployment Size	Description for X-Large Deployment Size
   Default	Deploys an appliance with 579 GB of storage.	Deploys an appliance with 694 GB of storage.	Deploys an appliance with 908 GB of storage.	Deploys an appliance with 1358 GB of storage.	Deploys an appliance with 2283 GB of storage.
   Large	Deploys an appliance with 2019 GB of storage.	Deploys an appliance with 2044 GB of storage.	Deploys an appliance with 2208 GB of storage.	Deploys an appliance with 2258 GB of storage.	Deploys an appliance with 2383 GB of storage.
   X-Large	Deploys an appliance with 4279 GB of storage.	Deploys an appliance with 4304 GB of storage.	Deploys an appliance with 4468 GB of storage.	Deploys an appliance with 4518 GB of storage.	Deploys an appliance with 4643 GB of storage.

10. From the list of available datastores, select the location to store the virtual machine (VM) configuration files and virtual disks, and, optionally, enable thin provisioning by selecting Enable Thin Disk Mode. NFS datastores are thin provisioned by default.
    Note: vCenter HA cannot be set up on a vCenter Server that has disks on more than one datastore.
11. Configure the temporary network for communication between the vCenter Server appliance that you want to upgrade and the new vCenter Server appliance, and click Next.

    Option	Action
    Choose a network	Select the network to which to connect the new appliance temporarily. The networks displayed in the drop-down menu depend on the network settings of the target server. If you are deploying the appliance directly on an ESXi host, non-ephemeral distributed virtual port groups are unsupported and are not displayed in the drop-down menu. Important: If you want to assign a temporary IPv4 address with DHCP allocation, you must select a network that is associated with a port group which accepts MAC address changes.
    IP Address family	Select the version for the temporary IP address of the new appliance. Can be either IPv4 or IPv6.
    Network type	Select the allocation method for the temporary IP address of the appliance. Static The wizard prompts you to enter the temporary IP address, subnet mask or prefix length, default gateway, and DNS servers. DHCP A DHCP server is used to allocate the temporary IP address. Select this option only if a DHCP server is available in your environment. Optionally, you can provide a temporary system name (FQDN) if a DDNS server is available in your environment.

12. On the Ready to complete stage 1 page, review the deployment settings for the new vCenter Server appliance and click Finish to start the OVA deployment process.
13. Wait for the OVA deployment process to finish and click Continue to proceed with stage 2 of the upgrade process to transfer the data from the old appliance and start the services of the new appliance.
    Note: If you exit the wizard by clicking Close, you must log in to the vCenter Server Management Interface of the newly deployed vCenter Server appliance to transfer the data from the old appliance and set up the services.

Results

The newly deployed vCenter Server appliance 8.0 is running on the target server but is not configured.

Important: The data from the old appliance is not transferred and the services of the new appliance are not started.

Stage 2 - Transfer Data and Set-Up the Newly Deployed vCenter High Availability Cluster

When the OVA deployment finishes, you are redirected to stage 2 of the upgrade process to transfer the data from the old appliance and start the services of the newly deployed vCenter Server appliance. When the deployment finishes, vCenter Server has high availability protection.

Prerequisites

Understand the data migration options available to you when upgrading or migrating to a vCenter Server appliance with an embedded PostgreSQL database. You can select to migrate historical and other types of data in the background after deploying and starting vCenter Server. See Transferring Data from an Existing vCenter Server Appliance.

Procedure

1. Review the introduction to stage 2 of the deployment process and click Next.
2. Wait for the pre-upgrade check to finish and read the pre-upgrade check result if any.
   • If the pre-upgrade check result contains error messages, read the messages and click Logs to export and download a support bundle for troubleshooting.

     You cannot proceed with the upgrade until you have corrected the errors.

     Important: If you have provided incorrect vCenter Single Sign-On user name and password of the source appliance during stage 1, the pre-upgrade check fails with an authentication error.
   • If the pre-upgrade check result contains warning messages, read the messages and click Close.

     After you have verified that your system meets the requirements from the warning message, you can proceed with the upgrade.

3. On the Select migration data page, choose the types of data that you want to transfer from the old appliance to the new, upgraded appliance.
   A large amount of data requires more time to be transferred to the new appliance. For the minimum upgrade time and storage requirements for the new appliance, select to transfer only the configuration data. If you are using an external Oracle database, you can also choose to migrate historical and performance metrics data in the background after you deploy and start the new vCenter Server appliance.
4. Review the VMware Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) page and choose if you want to join the program.
   For information about the CEIP, see the Configuring Customer Experience Improvement Program section in vCenter Server and Host Management.
5. On the Ready to complete page, review the upgrade settings, accept the backup acknowledgment, and click Finish.
6. Read the shutdown warning message and click OK.
7. Wait for the data transfer and setup process to finish and click OK to go to the vCenter Server Getting Started page.

Results

The vCenter Server appliance is upgraded. The old vCenter Server appliance is powered off and the new appliance starts.

After the Active node is upgraded, Auto Deployment automatically creates new Passive and Witness nodes using a clone operation. For Manual Deployment, nodes are not created automatically. You must clone the Passive and Witness virtual machines, and set the cluster mode to Enabled.

When the deployment finishes, vCenter Server has high availability protection. You can click Edit to enter Maintenance Mode, Deactivate, or Remove vCenter HA. You can also Initiate vCenter HA failover.

What to do next

For information about configuring and managing vCenter HA, see vSphere Availability.