VMware Cloud Foundation 

Apply a vCenter Update

Welcome to this demonstration on updating the management domain vCenter Server instance in VMware Cloud Foundation.

The major steps in this process are:

·       Ensure that the update bundle is available

·       Apply the vCenter Upgrade

·       Confirm that the upgrade is successful

Let’s join Rainpole as they begin this process on their Cloud Foundation Private Cloud  

We begin at the SDDC Manager dashboard and will need to look at the update bundles available to the Cloud Foundation Instance.

1. Click [Bundle Management]
   
   

Here we can review the available updates for this system.  We can see that there is a vCenter update available.  Let’s take a closer look at this update and see what version it will upgrade.

2. Click [View Details]
   
   

Here we see the bundle will upgrade the vCenter to 7.0 P01 Update. Let’s apply this update to the VMware Cloud Foundation instance.

3. Click [Exit Details]
   
   

Here we see a shortcut to apply this update, allowing us to quickly jump to the workload domain that this particular update applies to, allowing seamless patching experience.  This also ensures that only the proper updates are applied in the appropriate places.

4. Click [Applies to mgmt-domain]
   
   

We can see that there is 1 Update/Patches available

5. Click [Updates/Patches]
   
   

Now we need to run a health check against the management domain to ensure that there are no issues before attempting the upgrade

6. Click [Precheck]
7. Click [View Status]
   
   

Let’s review the precheck process as it runs through each of the components used in Management.  After a few moments we can see that the precheck has passed, but there was a warning on the ESXi Hosts.  Let’s inspect that warning. 

8. Click Scroll Bar
   
   

Here we can see that the ESXi host has a precheck warning stating that the ESXi Stock bundle may override the host VIB’s.  In this case we are patching the vCenter therefore it won’t be an issue.  Now that the environment is confirmed to be in a healthy state let’s update.

9. Click Scroll Bar
10. Click [Exit Details]
11. Click [Update Now]
    
    

The update has begun applying the vCenter Patch, after a few moments we see the upgrade start and show that 0/1 Resources have been updated, lets inspect the subtasks that SDDC Manager is executing on the vCenter.

12. Click Scroll Bar
    
    

Here we see the subtasks used in patching the vCenter server for the Management Domain.  Some things you can observe in the patching process is that the vCenter has a snapshot taken to ensure roll back options as well as validating the installation is successful.  In this update you can see that we did not have to reboot the vCenter therefore it shows a skip symbol.

Important things to note in the process of patching vCenter Server is that the system requires the management domain to be patched first ensuring version compatibility between vCenter as well as ESXi Hosts.  We can see the update applied successfully, and the vCenter version were updated accordingly in the Current Versions list.

13. Click Scroll Bar
    
    

Let’s review the Update History for the job that was just applied.

14. Click [Update History]
    
    

Here we can see a list of all jobs completed, and at the top of the list we see the vCenter update that was just applied.  If another update was available there would be a ‘1’ on the Updates/Patches tab, let’s click on it to confirm no additional updates are required.

15. Click [Updates/Patches]
    
    

Now that the vCenter has been patched to 7.0 Patch 01, our system is up to date.  This is an example of Cloud Foundation Lifecycle Management ensuring that updates are applied in the correct order for version compatibility.