Managing Software Updates, Upgrades, and Product Compatibility

You can view available vCenter Server updates and upgrades and produce interoperability reports about VMware products associated with vCenter Server. The reports help you plan vCenter Server updates and upgrades in your environment.

You can perform an interoperability check of VMware products within your environment againist both source and target vCenter Server versions. You can also generate a pre-update report to ensure your environment meets the minimum software and hardware requirements for a successful upgrade of vCenter Server. You can plan vCenter Server updates and upgrades based on the information in the reports you generate.

Interoperability report for the current vCenter Server

Lists VMware products in your environment and their compatibility with the current, or source, version of vCenter Server.

Interoperability reports for target versions of vCenter Server

Lists the VMware products in your environment and their compatibility againist the target version of vCenter Server to which you want to upgrade.

Pre-update reports

With the pre-update report, you can ensure that your system meets the minimum software and hardware requirements for a successful upgrade of vCenter Server. The report provides information about problems that might prevent the completion of a software upgrade, and actions you can take to remedy those problems.

Monitor Interoperability for the Current vCenter Server Version

You can view an interoperability report that lists products in your environment associated with the current vCenter Server version and their compatibility.

The product interoperability report lists available products in your environment and their compatibility with the selected vCenter Server version.

Prerequisites

To use Update Planner, you must join the VMware Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP). For information about the CEIP, see the "Configuring Customer Experience Improvement Program" section in vCenter Server and Host Management.

Procedure

1. In the vSphere Client navigate to a vCenter Server for which you want to view an interoperability report.
2. On the Monitor tab, click Interoperability.
   The Product Interoperability report lists all available products in your environment associated with the selected vCenter Server.
3. (Optional) If there are VMware products in your environment that go undetected, you can manually add them to the list of products to check and regenerate the interoperability report.
   1. Click Add Product in the Product Interoperability pane.
   2. Select the VMware product and version you want to include in the interoperability report.
      Repeat this step for each VMware product you want to add to the report.
   3. To add the selected products to the product inventory click Done.
   4. Regenerate the report and verify that the products you added are included in the report.
4. (Optional) Click Export in the Product Interoperability pane to export and save a copy of the report as a comma-separated values (CSV) file, which allows data to be saved in a tabular format.

What to do next

• Using the information in the report, you can apply patches and updates to your vCenter Server environment. See Patching and Updating vCenter Server 8.0 Deployments.
• You can generate a pre-upgrade report that lists actions that you must address to ensure a successful upgrade of vCenter Server in your environment. See Generate an Interoperability Report for Target vCenter Server Versions.

Generate an Interoperability Report for Target vCenter Server Versions

You can perform pre-checks and generate reports that provide product interoperability information for recommended update and upgrade versions of vCenter Server.

You can create a vCenter Server pre-update interoperability report to check the compatibility of VMware products in your environment againist a pending version of vCenter Server. You can view the list of products in your environment that are associated with the current vCenter Server version, and wheather or not those products are compatible with a suggested update version.

Prerequisites

To use this feature, you must join the VMware Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP). For information about the CEIP, see the "Configuring Customer Experience Improvement Program" section in vCenter Server and Host Management.

Procedure

1. In the vSphere Client, select a vCenter Server for which you want to view an interoperability report.
2. On the Updates tab, click Update
3. Click Target Version.
4. Select the target version from the list of available updates and click OK. The list contains minor updates and major upgrade versions of vCenter Server.
5. Click Product Interoperability to view the report.
6. (Optional) If there are VMware products in your environment that go undetected, you can manually add them to the list of products to check and regenerate the interoperability report.
   1. Click Modify Product List.
   2. Select the VMware product and version you want to include in the interoperability report.
      Repeat this step for each VMware product you want to add to the report.
   3. To add the selected products to the Update product inventory click Done.
   4. Regenerate the report and verify that the products you added are included in the report.
7. (Optional) Click Export to save the report as a comma-separated values (CSV) file, which allows data to be saved in a tabular format.

What to do next

• Using the information in the pre-upgrade report, you can apply patches and updates to your vCenter Server environment. See Patching and Updating vCenter Server 8.0 Deployments.
• You can generate a pre-upgrade report that lists actions that you must address to ensure a successful upgrade of vCenter Server in your environment. See Generate an Interoperability Report for Target vCenter Server Versions.

Generate Pre-Update Reports

You can run pre-checks and generate reports that provide pre-update information. You use this information to make sure that your system meets the minimum software and hardware requirements to ensure a successful upgrade of vCenter Server.

When you generate a pre-update report, the report lists the actions you must address to ensure a successful upgrade of vCenter Server in your environment. The report also provides information about problems that might prevent the completion of a software upgrade or update.

Procedure

1. In the vSphere Client, select a vCenter Server for which you want to view a pre-update report.
2. On the Updates tab, click Update.
3. Click Target Version.
4. Select the target version from the list of available updates and click OK. The list contains minor updates and major upgrade versions of vCenter Server.
5. Select Source Pre-Checks to view pre-update report.
6. (Optional) Click Export to save the report as a comma-separated values (CSV) file, which allows data to be saved in a tabular format.

What to do next

• Using the information in the pre-upgrade report, you can apply patches and updates to your vCenter Server environment. See Patching and Updating vCenter Server 8.0 Deployments.
• You can generate an interoperability report that lists available VMware products in your environment, and the versions compatible with the vCenter Server version for which you are generating the report. See Generate an Interoperability Report for Target vCenter Server Versions.