VMware vSphere SDKs and Tools 8.0

8.0 7.0 6.7 6.5

Upgrading a
vCenter Server
 Instance

You can use the API during stage 2 of the
vCenter Server
 instance upgrade.
By using the API, you can upgrade your
vCenter Server
 instance. For information about the upgrade process, its stages, supported configurations, upgrade paths, prerequisites for upgrading, and the sequence for upgrading a
vSphere
 environment, see the
vCenter Server Upgrade
 documentation.
After you deploy the
vCenter Server
 instance on stage 1 by using the GUI or CLI, the instance enters in an
INITIALIZED
 state. If the
vCenter Server
 instance is not initialized, you cannot run stage 2 of the upgrade process. You can get the state of the
vCenter Server
 instance by using the
vcenter deployment
 service. There are six states during the upgrade process.
Upgrade Stage 2 State Diagram
A diagram with the Upgrade Stage 2 states, which are Not_Initialized, Initialized, Config_In_Progress, Failed, Question_Raised, Configured.
vCenter Server
 Instance States During Upgrade Stage 2
State
Description
NOT_INITIALIZED
The upgrade stage 1 phase is in progress, not started, or failed.
INITIALIZED
The
vCenter Server
 instance is deployed and ready for upgrading.
CONFIG_IN_PROGRESS
The upgrade process is in progress.
QUESTION_RAISED
You must answer the question to continue the upgrade process. The
vCenter Server
 instance stays in the
QUESTION_RAISED
 state until it receives the correct answer.
FAILED
Errors appeared during the upgrade process. You can check the errors, warnings, and info data structures.
CONFIGURED
The
vCenter Server
 instance is upgraded or configured successfully.
FAILED
 and
CONFIGURED
 are final states.
You can roll back a
vCenter Server
 instance upgrade by using the GUI. For information about how to roll back a
vCenter Server
 instance, see the
vCenter Server Upgrade
 documentation.
After the upgrade, you can check the
vCenter Server
 instance type, domain registration, services, their state and health status by using the API. For information about how to verify whether the upgrade of your
vCenter Server
 instance is successful, see the
vCenter Server Upgrade
 documentation.
Table 2 shows operations that you can perform to upgrade your
vCenter Server
 instance.
User Operations
Operation
Description
Operations for upgrading
Get the state of the
vCenter Server
 instance
You can get the state of the
vCenter Server
instance before, during and after the upgrade process.
For information about the HTTP requests for diagnostic and deferring the transfer of historical data, see HTTP Requests for Upgrade Stage 2.
Check
You can validate the upgrade spec before you run the upgrade process. If the
vCenter Server
 instance is in the
INITIALIZED
 state, you can run the validation. The operation runs upgrade pre-checks. You can check the errors, warnings, and status data structures before you run the upgrade process.
For information about the HTTP requests for upgrading, see HTTP Requests for Upgrade Stage 2.
Start
If the
vCenter Server
 instance is in an
INITIALIZED
 state, you can run the upgrade process. If errors appear during the upgrade, you can download the
vCenter Server
 support bundle.
For information about the HTTP requests for upgrading, see HTTP Requests for Upgrade Stage 2.
Get
If the
vCenter Server
 instance is in a
CONFIGURED
 state, you can get the
spec
 that is used for upgrading.
For information about the HTTP requests for upgrading, see HTTP Requests for Upgrade Stage 2.
Operations for getting and answering a question
Get
You can get the raised question. If you set the
Upgrade.auto_answer
 to
true
, the upgrade process will be in a
silent
 mode and the
vCenter Server
instance does not generate questions. It uses default answers and you should not provide an answer.
For information about the HTTP requests for getting and answering a question, see HTTP Requests for Upgrade Stage 2.
Answer
You can provide an answer to the raised question. The available answers for the upgrading are
OK
,
CANCEL
,
YES
,
NO
,
ABORT
,
RETRY
, and
IGNORE
. The answer depends on the type of the question. If you set the
Upgrade.auto_answer
 to
true
, the upgrade process will be in a
silent
 mode and the
vCenter Server
instance does not generate questions. It uses default answers and you should not provide an answer.
For information about the HTTP requests for getting and answering a question, see HTTP Requests for Upgrade Stage 2.
For information about the available operations in the API, see the
vcenter deployment
,
vcenter deployment upgrade
,
vcenter services
, and
vcenter system-config deployment type
 services in the
API reference
 documentation.
You can upgrade your
vCenter Server
 instance by using HTTP requests. For information about the HTTP requests, see HTTP Requests for Upgrade Stage 2.

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