During the upgrade of vRealize Operations, you can review and follow these guidelines.

  • Run the appropriate versioned pre-upgrade assessment tool on your current vRealize Operations before performing the upgrade to view the possible impact of your custom content to plan appropriate maintenance efforts for adjusting impacted custom content.

    See Using the Pre-Upgrade Assessment Tool for vRealize Operations 8.6 and vRealize Operations Upgrade Center for the latest information.

  • Verify existing functionality before upgrading

    Ensure the environment is fully functional before starting an upgrade. It is recommended to make a list of what works (or does not work) to confirm the same functionality post upgrade.

  • Backup customized content before upgrade

    Customized content must be backed up and saved for any potential overwrites or losses during upgrade.

  • Snapshot VMs with the cluster offline before upgrading

    After verifying functionality and backing up customized content, snapshot all the analytics VMs within the cluster for failsafe in event of an upgrade failure.

  • Check interoperability of management packs before upgrade

    It may be possible that some management packs will not be supported in the new product version and render the management pack inoperable. Before encountering this situation, confirm interoperability of management packs with the new product version.

    See VMware Product Interoperability Matrix and VMware Compatibility Guide for supported management pack versions.

  • Perform the upgrade outside of DT / QIC / Costing or Backup processing

    Perform the upgrade of the vRealize Operations cluster outside the dynamic threshold, or capacity calculations, or costing, or during backups to avoid capturing high stress states.

  • Setup blackout for maintenance to avoid false alerts

    When performing maintenance, such as an upgrade or resizing the cluster, schedule a maintenance window to account for the performed activity to avoid receiving false alerts and notifications.

  • Examine the recommendations from the validation checks before performing the upgrade

    There is a pre-check upgrade validation script that runs before performing the actual upgrade. Address any failures and warnings before continuing to upgrade or the upgrade may fail.

  • Enable the option to reset Default Content

    Select the option to reset default content and bring in new content. This will overwrite existing content to a newer version provided by the update. User modifications to DEFAULT Alert Definitions, Symptoms, Recommendations, Policy Definitions, Views, Dashboards, Widgets, and Reports will be overwritten; therefore, clone or backup the content before you proceed.

  • Upgrade the OS PAK prior to upgrading the virtual appliance (VA) PAK for vRealize Operations 7.5 and lower.

    To ensure a solid base OS before upgrading vRealize Operations, upgrade the OS of the virtual appliance first before upgrading vRealize Operations.

  • Use the appropriate vRealize Operations upgrade PAK file

    Starting with vRealize Operations 8.1, there are two PAK files available for upgrade:

    1. Upgrade PAK file includes the OS upgrade files from SUSE to Photon and the vApp upgrade files for upgrading from vRealize Operations Manager 7.5 and lower.

    2. Upgrade PAK file includes the OS upgrade files from Photon to Photon and the vApp upgrade files for upgrading from vRealize Operations 8.0.

  • Pre-distribute PAK files to minimize downtime during upgrade

    One of the longest steps of the upgrade process is the distribution of the PAK files across all the nodes. To minimize this time, pre-distribute the PAK files to all nodes before starting the upgrade.

    See How to reduce vRealize Operations update time by pre-copying software update PAK files.

  • Verify functionality after the upgrade

    Validate that the same functionality exists after the upgrade completed as compared to before the upgrade started.

  • Remove VM snapshots when the upgrade is completed and successfully verified

    Remove all VM snapshots post upgrade and verification of the environment as maintaining snapshots will cause performance problems.

  • Be mindful when upgrading remote collectors

    Remote collectors may be located in distant locations to the vRealize Operations cluster so consider potential latency and performance issues before performing an upgrade. Ensure that the remote collectors meet the latency requirements of less than 200ms. If they do not meet latency requirements, remove those remote collectors from the cluster one-by-one.

    To remove high latency remote collectors, bring the cluster offline and take snapshots prior to removing the remote collectors. Then bring the cluster back online and remove each impacted remote collector one-by-one using the UI. After removal of all high latency remote collectors, follow the upgrade process. Once the upgrade is completed, install new remote collectors with the same product version to replace previously removed remote collectors and join the cluster.