Upgrading a Minimal Installation of VCF 9.0.1 to 9.0.2

Smaller environments running VCF 9 might have a subset of the VCF components/appliances deployed. This minimizes the virtual infrastructure management footprint and resource consumption. For example, a three-host environment might have VCF Operations 9 + vCenter 9 + ESX 9. The downside to these types of deployments is you lose some of the VCF functionality such as fleet management. This begs the question, "How do I update the components I have?" You can upgrade version 9 components such as VCF Operations, vCenter, and ESX similar how you upgraded version 8.

In this example, we'll upgrade a small environment that consists of VCF Operations 9.0.1, vCenter 9.0.1, and ESX 9.0.1 to 9.0.2.

We'll upgrade the components in the order below as recommended here:

• VCF Operations
• vCenter
• ESX

VCF Operations

Download the .pak file for the VCF Operations version you are upgrading to. In this case, we are upgrading 9.0.1 to 9.0.2 so I need this file -- Operations-Upgrade-9.0.2.0.25137843.pak -- from the My Downloads section of the Broadcom Support Portal.

Next, I log into the admin console of VCF Operations. Add /admin to the VCF Operations URL, e.g., https://<vcf-ops-ip-address>/admin

In the left column, click on Software Update. Click the Install A Software Update button. Browse for the downloaded .pak file and click the Upload button.

The upload and staging of the file will likely take a few minutes. You might see the following warning:

"The update will restart the cluster for the entirety of the update."

This is referring to the VCF Operations cluster (even if it is a single-node cluster), not the ESX cluster. Continue through the upgrade wizard and click the Install button. The upgrade will naturally take some time.

vCenter

The next component to upgrade is vCenter. Start by reading this knowledge base (KB) article:

https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article?legacyId=92659

We'll download and use the VMware-VCSA-all-9.0.2.0.25148086.iso file to upgrade from 9.0.1 to 9.0.2. You will need to mount that .iso file to the vCenter appliance similar to what is shown below.

Select vCenter in your vSphere Client inventory and click Updates. The UI will walk you through the vCenter upgrade.

You should back up vCenter before performing the upgrade. If you are not familiar with how to do this, start here:

https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/vmware-cis/vsphere/vsphere/9-0/vcenter-configuration/configuring-vcenter-server-using-the-management-interface/configure-and-schedule-backups.html

You might see a warning, "Plugin should be upgraded to proceed further." Simply click the Upgrade Plug-in link before clicking Next. This will take a few minutes.

You will likely have to run the pre-checks after the plug-in upgrade (shown below). Then click Next assuming the source pre-checks ran successfully.

Click the Configure Target Appliance link. The selections in this wizard should be familiar from previous vCenter upgrades. I used the default settings.

In the final step you'll click the Start Upgrade link and set the Switchover Execution. I chose Automated from the drop-down menu. After that, I started the upgrade and waited patiently. Behind the scenes, a new vCenter appliance is deployed, the settings and data from the original appliance are copied over, and a switch-over occurs from the original appliance to the new one. As you can probably imagine, this takes a while. Ensure you have sufficient storage and compute resources for this upgrade.

You can delete the old vCenter VM after confirming the upgrade/migration completed successfully.

ESX

Finally, we upgrade the hosts. This is done using Lifecycle Manager in the vSphere Client. Click on the cluster or host if you have standalone hosts. Click on Updates. Edit the image to use the ESX version you want to upgrade to along with any vendor, firmware, and driver add-ons. Click Validate and then Save assuming the image is valid.

Lifecycle Manager should automatically check image compliance after you click Save. In the example below, we see that the single host in my lab environment is out of compliance with the new image.

Run the Pre-Check and then Remediate assuming the pre-check passed. Many upgrades still require a reboot although this is getting better with live patching. I recommend reading through the Lifecycle Manager documentation prior to using it. If you have a single host, you will need to shutdown all of the VMs on the host, put the host into maintenance mode, and perform an interactive upgrade using a CD, DVD, USB device, .iso file, ESXCLI, or script--reference this documentation for guidance.

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 Minimal Deployment

In the vSphere 8 era, many small environments relied on the lean duo of ESXi and vCenter for simplicity and low overhead. VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9 evolves this model into a full-stack private cloud, offering automated lifecycle management, advanced networking, native container support, application blueprint provisioning, private AI, and much more--albeit with higher resource demands.

Fortunately, a minimal VCF installation enables smaller shops to use vCenter and ESX 9 without overcommitting their hardware. It is important to understand that you will not get all of the full-stack VCF 9 private cloud features and benefits when you perform a minimal installation or upgrade.

The main difference between a vSphere 8 environment and a minimal deployment of VCF 9 is the addition of VCF Operations (formerly Aria Operations). The following image shows an example of a minimal deployment--a 2-node cluster running vCenter, ESX, and VCF Operations 9.0.

Licensing was moved from vCenter to VCF Operations. In other words, you will need to deploy vCenter and VCF Operations to license and manage a 9 environment. There are numerous other benefits to running VCF Operations in a small environment such as...

• Analytics: Predictive issue detection to help prevent downtime.
• Security: Single dashboard for security posture.
• Capacity: Forecasting and recommendations to eliminate resource waste and optimize performance.
• Compliance: Monitors the environment against industry benchmarks (PCI-DSS, HIPAA, etc.).

Another key difference is full-stack VCF is deployed using the VCF Installer. If you want to keep the deployment to a minimum, you must install or upgrade the vCenter and ESX components manually and deploy VCF operations from an .ova file.

The remainder of this article provides an overview of an upgrade from vCenter and ESX 8 to a minimal installation of vCenter, ESX, and VCF Operations 9. This article does not provide detailed, step-by-step instructions. See the VCF 9.0 documentation for comprehensive coverage of deploying, upgrading, and running VCF 9.

Hardware Compatibility

Before starting any upgrade, you should verify compatibility and support of your hardware with the software version you are upgrading to. See the Broadcom Compatibility Guide. Note that there have been some changes to what is supported with VCF 9.0. Some older hardware is supported with 9.0, but might require a Request for Product Qualification/Technical Qualification (RPQ/TQ) as discussed in Broadcom Knowledge Base (KB) article 428874.

vCenter

Ensure your environment is healthy and properly configured before starting an upgrade. This includes items such as consistent NTP settings across the environment, proper DNS configuration, allocation of IP addresses for the VCF components, a current backup of your vCenter virtual appliance, and making sure all of your certificates are valid.

The upgrade of vCenter deploys a new vCenter virtual appliance and copies the settings and data from the original vCenter to the new vCenter. The original vCenter appliance is shut down when the new one is ready, but the original is not deleted. You can delete the original appliance after verifying the migration to the new appliance went well.

Next, you will need to update the download sources in Lifecycle Manager (if you haven't already) to enable the upgrade of ESX. See Broadcom KB articles 390098 and 390121. The URLs you add to Lifecycle Manager in vCenter will look similar to this:

Be sure to restart the Update Manager service in vCenter for the changes take effect.

ESX

Ensure the version of ESX you are currently running can be upgraded directly to the version you are upgrading to. Use the Product Interoperability Matrix > Upgrade Path to verify. The image below shows an example of what this upgrade path matrix looks like. In this example, you can upgrade to 9.01 or 9.0.2 if you are running 8.0U3g, but you must upgrade to 9.0.2 if you are running 8.0U3h.

I encourage you to read the documentation for using Lifecycle Manager to upgrade hosts. This documentation provides guidance on creating and using Lifecycle Manager images in vCenter.

VCF Operations

Now it is time to add VCF Operations to your vCenter 9 and ESX 9 environment. Locate the VCF Cloud Foundation Operations downloads on the Broadcom Support site.

Download the .ova file for initial deployment. The .pak file is for upgrading an existing instance of VCF Operations.

Below are the high-level steps for deploying and configuring VCF Operations:

Reserve a static IP address and add a DNS record for VCF Operations.

Select the ideal configuration size for your environment. Extra Small is good for very small environments to minimize the footprint of VCF Operations.

Power on the appliance and go to the URL on the console of the appliance. The Express Installation option is fine for most small environments.

The Cluster Status will show Not Started on the VCF Operations Administration page. Click the Start VCF Operations button.

On the Home > Overview screen, select vCenter and add an account.

Enter the necessary information to connect to vCenter. Also configure vSAN in this window if you are running vSAN.

Go to Integrations in the left column of the VCF Operations window. Notice the Status is Stopped. Place a check in the box and click Activate Management. This is necessary for license management.

Start the VCF Operations collection of data from vCenter. Click the three dots and click Start Collecting All.

IMPORTANT: Licensing changed significantly in VCF 9. Licensing is managed in VCF Operations. Learn how to register and license your environment by following the documentation here.

Again, this article is not meant to be a step-by-step guide on deploying a minimal installation of VCF 9 or upgrading from vSphere 8 to VCF 9. The product documentation should be consulted for details and guidance on all aspects of deploying, upgrading, and running VCF.