vSphere 6.7 upgrade vSAN 6.6 to 6.7 - pt.4

If the virtual infrastructure in use is configured with vSAN, after completing the upgrade of both vCSA and ESXi hosts to version 6.7, also vSAN should be upgraded to the latest version.

After the upgrade of vSphere components (vCSA and ESXi hosts), the vSAN cluster's Summary tab displays a warning message related to Disk format version.

This warning is due to vSphere 6.7 that comes with the new vSAN version 6.7.

Blog Series

vSphere 6.7 install vCSA - pt.1
vSphere 6.7 upgrade vCSA 6.5 to 6.7 - pt.2
vSphere 6.7 upgrade ESXi 6.5 to 6.7 - pt.3
vSphere 6.7 upgrade vSAN 6.6 to 6.7 - pt.4

vSAN cluster checks before the upgrade

Before upgrading the vSAN cluster, some checks must be performed to avoid possible issues or data loss during the upgrade process.

Select the vSAN cluster and go to Configure tab. Click on Disk Management under vSANarea and verify that vSAN Health Status is reported as Healthy for all disks and disk groups configured.

Make sure that no rebuilding tasks are currently running in the vSAN cluster. From vSphere Client select the vSAN cluster and go to Monitor tab. Select Resyncing Objects option under vSAN section. In this area, you can check running tasks or perform a synchronization before proceeding with the upgrade by clicking Resync Throttling.

From vSphere Client select the vSAN cluster and go to Configure tab. Click Pre-Check Upgrade button before launching the upgrade to ensure vSAN can be safely upgraded.

If the Pre-Check Upgrade process reports a green flag with Ready to upgrade - pre-check completed successfully, the system is ready to be upgraded.

Upgrade vSAN

When the pre-checks have been completed, from Configuration tab select Disk management option under the vSAN section. Click the Upgrade button to perform the upgrade of your vSAN cluster.

Based on your requirements select the Allow Reduced Redundancy option.

Click Upgrade to proceed with the upgrade.

The upgrade takes place and requires some minutes to complete depending on the disks size.

When the upgrade process has been completed successfully, the system reports a green flag with the status All  disks on version 6.0.

The procedure to upgrade vSAN is now complete. The virtual infrastructure is now running vSphere 6.7 and you are able to take benefit of new features provided

vSphere 6.7 upgrade ESXi 6.5 to 6.7 - pt.3

After upgrading the vCSA, to take benefit of new features provided by vSphere 6.7 you have to upgrade also all ESXi hosts installed in your virtual infrastructure.

The procedure it's pretty easy and rely on the Update Manager service provided with vSphere 6.7.

Blog Series

vSphere 6.7 install vCSA 6.7 - pt.1
vSphere 6.7 upgrade vCSA 6.5 to 6.7 - pt.2
vSphere 6.7 upgrade ESXi 6.5 to 6.7 - pt.3
vSphere 6.7 upgrade vSAN 6.6 to 6.7 - pt.4

Upgrade ESXi 6.5 to 6.7

To verify the installed ESXi version in the network, from the vSphere Client go to the host's Summary section and check the Hypervisor field.

Create the upgrade baseline

A new baseline must be created in the Update Manager service to easily upgrade all ESXi hosts in your network. Click Menu and select Update Manager.

From the Update Manager area, select the ESXi images section and click Import.

Click Browse button to select the ESXi 6.7 installer in ISO format downloaded from VMware website.

Selected the correct image version, click Import to import the image in the vCSA.

When the installer has been imported successfully, click New Baseline to create the baseline to apply to the hosts you need to upgrade.

Specify a Name and a Description to better identify the scope of the baseline. Click Next.

Select the previously imported ESXi image and click Next.

Click Finish to create the baseline.

In the Baselines section is now listed the new created baseline .

Attach the baseline

Created the baseline needed to upgrade the hosts, you have to attach this baseline to all ESXi you want to upgrade. Select the cluster with the hosts to process and go to Updates section. Click Attach.

Select the correct baseline to attach and click OK.

Click Check Compliance to verify hosts to upgrade.

Remediate hosts

Since the host upgrade cannot be staged, click Remediate to proceed with the upgrade.

The installation process begins. Accept the EULA and click OK.

Select the ESXi hosts to upgrade and click OK. You can safely proceed even if you have vSAN cluster configured in place.

The upgrade is being processed.

When the upgrade has completed successfully, all hosts are reported as Compliant.

Troubleshooting

After upgrading the first host, the vCSA was unable to reconnect the processed host displaying an error related to the Enhanced VMotion Compatibility mode. Not sure why this error, maybe Spectre/Meltdown CPU microcode fixes somehow may have affected the EVC cluster.

A workaround used to continue with the upgrade was disabling the VMware EVC feature in the processed cluster and enabling it after connecting all upgraded ESXi hosts.

Disabled the VMware EVC feature, right click the failed host and select Connection > Connect. This time the host was connected successfully to the cluster.

When all upgraded hosts are connected to the cluster, enable the vSphere EVC feature once again.

The ESXi hosts upgrade procedure is now complete. If you have a vSAN cluster configured, the cluster's Summary section reports warnings related to vSAN since vSphere 6.7 comes with the new vSAN 6.6 version.

The final step of the overall upgrade procedure consists of the upgrade of the vSAN cluster if configured. Part 4 will cover vSAN upgrade to finalize the migration to the new version.

vSphere 6.7 upgrade vCSA 6.5 to 6.7 - pt.2

f your vSphere environment is running version 6.0 or above, you can easily migrate the vCenter Server to version 6.7 with the migration tool provided with vSphere 6.7.

Compared to a fresh vCSA installation, the upgrade is the preferred method to use for complex environments or where time-consuming settings have been configured in the original vCenter Server. Currently, the direct vCSA upgrade to version 6.7 is supported from vCSA 6.0 or 6.5 U1 but it was already announced the upcoming vCSA 6.7 U1 update release will support the upgrade also from version 6.5 U2.

Although the upgrade process doesn't delete the original vCSA, before proceeding with the upgrade make sure you have a working backup available to restore the original vCSA in case of problems.

Blog Series

vSphere 6.7 install vCSA 6.7 - pt.1
vSphere 6.7 upgrade vCSA 6.5 to 6.7 - pt.2
vSphere 6.7 upgrade ESXi 6.5 to 6.7 - pt.3
vSphere 6.7 upgrade vSAN 6.6 to 6.7 - pt.4

Pre-requisites

Before proceeding with the upgrade, the vSphere DRS feature in the source vCSA must be disabled or set to manual to avoid the issue with the vCSA during the upgrade procedure.

From the vSphere Web Client, right-click the cluster and select Settings. Access the vSphere DRS section under Services and set DRS Automation to Manual then click OK to confirm.

When the vSphere DRS has been set to Manual you are ready to begin the upgrade procedure.

Upgrade the vCSA

The upgrade to version 6.7 is a two stage process:

• Stage 1 - Deployment of the new appliance
• Stage 2 - Configuration of the vCSA

Stage 1 - Deploy the appliance

Mount the ISO file downloaded from VMware website and run the installer from the supported OSs (Windows, Linux, MacOS) by double clicking the installer.exe file.

From the Deploy appliance wizard, click Upgrade.

Click Next to begin the procedure.

Accept the EULA then click Next.

Enter the source Appliance FQDN or IP Address then click Connect to source.

Specify the SSO User name, SSO password and the Appliance (OS) root password. Enter also the ESXi host where the source vCSA resides. Click Next.

Click Yes to accept the certificate.

Specify the target ESXi host where to deploy the new appliance and enter the credentials. Click Next.

Click Yes to accept the certificate from the specified host.

Enter the VM name and the root password. Click Next to continue.

Based on your environment, specify the Deployment size and Storage size then click Next.

Select the datastore to use and click Next.

Configure the required network parameters. The Temporary IP address is used only during the deployment process, production IP address will be the same as the source appliance. Click Next.

Click Finish to begin the deployment.

The deployment of the new appliance is being performed.

When the deployment has been completed successfully, click Continue to proceed with Stage 2. At this point you could stop the upgrade procedure and resume it later accessing the vCSA Management interface at the address https://IP_temp_address:5480.

Take a snapshot of the new vCSA to resume the deployment from this point in case Stage 2 fails for some reasons.

Stage 2 - Configuration of the vCSA

Completed Stage 1, click Next to begin Stage 2 of the deployment procedure.

Enter the required parameters to connect to source vCenter and click Next.

Before migrating the configuration from the source vCenter Server, a pre-upgrade check is performed by the installer.

You may receive warnings about the following:

• The cluster where the source vCenter Server is located must have the vSphere DRS feature not set to Fully Automated
• Baselines not compatible with Update Manager 6.7 won't be copied
• Warnings about vCenter Server extensions that cannot be migrated
• If the source appliance has multiple NICs configured, only the network information related to Eth0 will be preserved

Fix the detected issues that may prevent the upgrade (in the worse case you need to redeploy the vCSA). Click Close to proceed.

Select the data to be migrated and click Next. Available data migration options are the following:

• Configuration
• Configuration + historical data (events and tasks)
• Configuration + historical data (events, tasks and performance metrics)

Optionally you can select the Join the VMware's CEIP option. Click Next to begin data migration.

Click OK to proceed with the upgrade.

In step 1 data are copied from the source vCenter Server.

During step 2 target vCSA is being configured and services are started.

Final step import copied data to the new vCSA.

Some messages are displayed to inform you about changes you should do in your environment after the deployment. Click Close.

When the upgrade has completed successfully, click Close to exit the wizard. The new vCSA is now reachable at the same DNS name or IP address of the source vCenter Server.

After logging to the new vCSA (the HTML5 client works more much better now and provides most of the available features) you can notice the old vCenter Server still available and in a powered off state and of course the just deployed vCSA. The IP address didn't change and it is the same as the source vCenter Server.

The vSphere DRS feature in the cluster can be re-configured to Fully Automated, if you use this configuration.

The vCSA is now running the new version 6.7. To take benefit of new features available in vSphere 6.7, next step to perform is the upgrade of the ESXi hosts present in the infrastructure. Part 3 will cover the ESXi hosts upgrade using VUM.