VMware Cloud Foundation 4.5

5.2 5.1 5.0 4.5
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Upgrade ESXi with vSphere Lifecycle Manager Baselines for VMware Cloud Foundation

The management domain uses vSphere Lifecycle Manager baselines for ESXi host upgrades. VI workload domains can use vSphere Lifecycle Manager baselines or vSphere Lifecycle Manager images. The following procedure describes upgrading ESXi hosts in workload domains that use vSphere Lifecycle Manager baselines.
  • Validate that the ESXi passwords are valid.
  • Ensure that the domain for which you want to perform cluster-level upgrade does not have any hosts or clusters in an error state. Resolve the error state or remove the hosts and clusters with errors before proceeding.
For information about upgrading ESXi in VI workload domains that use vSphere Lifecycle Manager images, see Upgrade ESXi with vSphere Lifecycle Manager Images for VMware Cloud Foundation.
By default, the upgrade process upgrades the ESXi hosts in all clusters in a workload domain in parallel. If you have multiple clusters in the management domain or in a VI workload domain, you can select the clusters to upgrade.
If you want to skip any hosts while applying an ESXi update to the management domain or a VI workload domain, you must add these hosts to the
application-prod.properties
 file before you begin the update. See "Skip Hosts During ESXi Update".
To perform ESXi upgrades with custom ISO images or async drivers see "Upgrade ESXi with Custom ISOs" and "Upgrade ESXi with Stock ISO and Async Drivers".
If you are using external (non-vSAN) storage, the following procedure updates the ESXi hosts attached to the external storage. However, updating and patching the storage software and drivers is a manual task and falls outside of SDDC Manager lifecycle management. To ensure supportability after an ESXi upgrade, consult the vSphere HCL and your storage vendor.
  1. Navigate to the
    Updates/Patches
     tab of the workload domain.
  2. Click
    Precheck
     to run the upgrade precheck.
    Resolve any issues before proceeding with the upgrade.
  3. In the Available Updates section, select the target release.
  4. Click
    Upgrade Now
     or
    Schedule Update
    .
  5. If you selected
    Schedule Update
    , specify the date and time for the bundle to be applied.
  6. Select the clusters to upgrade and click
    Next
    .
    The default setting is to upgrade all clusters. To upgrade specific clusters, click
    Enable cluster-level selection
     and select the clusters to upgrade.
  7. Click
    Next
    .
  8. Select the appropriate upgrade options and click
    Finish
    .
    By default, the selected clusters are upgraded in parallel. If you selected more than five clusters to be upgraded, the first five are upgraded in parallel and the remaining clusters are upgraded sequentially. To upgrade all selected clusters sequentially, select
    Enable sequential cluster upgrade
    .
    Click
    Enable Quick Boot
     if desired. Quick Boot for ESXi hosts is an option that allows Update Manager to reduce the upgrade time by skipping the physical reboot of the host.
  9. Monitor the upgrade progress. See Monitor VMware Cloud Foundation Updates.
Upgrade the vSAN Disk Format for vSAN clusters. The disk format upgrade is optional. Your vSAN cluster continues to run smoothly if you use a previous disk format version. For best results, upgrade the objects to use the latest on-disk format. The latest on-disk format provides the complete feature set of vSAN. See Upgrading vSAN Disk Format Using vSphere Client.

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