Upgrade vRealize Suite using vRealize Lifecycle Manager

Recently VMware updated their entire vRealize Suite. It’s always nice to receive a new suite of products with new shiny functionality but it also means a lot of work for you sysadmins, upgrading your entire environment. Well, not any more! With vRealize Lifecycle Manager it became a lot easier to upgrade vRealize Suite.

On April 13th my mailbox got hit with the update notice on alle of the following products:

• vRealize Operations (6.7)
• vRealize Log Insight (4.6)
• vRealize Automation (7.4)
• vRealize Business for Cloud (7.4)
• vRealize Lifecycle Manager (1.2)

And it’s not only security and bug fixes, these releases are filled with new features. To give you a shot summary, …

vRealize Operations now has a 30% reduced footprint, Predictive real-time analytics, Native cost visibility, Refreshed vSAN troubleshooting, vCenter integration, Enhanced vSAN dashboards, continuous performance optimization and much more.

vRealize Log Insight upped it’s vCenter support to 15 per node, added ability to  authenticate VMware Identity Manager (vIDM) local users, added support for sending syslog over UDP, added ability to control the visibility of items on Dashboard widgets, etc.

vRealize Automation now includes a Custom Request Forms Designer, ability to deploy from OVF, improved integration with vRealize Operations for better placement, Just in Time user provisioning, improved Handling of Stuck Requests, multitenancy in VMware vRealize Orchestrator.

vRealize Business for Cloud now allows you to define T-shirt sizes for VMs, Storage policy driven pricing for vCloud Director, apply daily pricing for OS license consumption based on VM up time, power state or regardless of VM power up state.

vRealize Lifecycle Manager now has integrated Content Lifecycle Management (Houdini), Install pre-checker and various GUI enhancements.

All-in-all a very comprehensive list of new functions and features which should tempt you to upgrade vRealize Suite to this latest version. So, how do you upgrade vRealize using vRealize Lifecycle Manager? First of all, install or upgrade vRealize Lifecycle Manager (vRLCM) 1.2.

Install or upgrade vRealize Lifecycle Manager

I won’t discuss the install and configure of vRLCM, I assume you all know how to install an OVA. If you want to know how to install and configure vRLCM check the VMware Docs on that.

To upgrade vRLCM, check for and install updates in the vRLCM GUI (Settings > Update > [Check Update])
Upgrade is available for vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager version 1.0 or 1.1 to version 1.2. You can also upgrade vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager by using an ISO file to install the upgrade. It is wise to create a snapshot of your vRLCM appliance before you upgrade, in case something goes wrong.

Also verify that no critical tasks are currently in progress in vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager. The upgrade process stops and starts vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager services and restarts the vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager virtual appliance, which might corrupt in-progress tasks.

1. Click Settings and click the Update tab.
2. Select the repository for vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager updates.
3. Click [CHECK UPDATES].
   After a few minutes, vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager displays a message indicating whether there are updates available.
4. Select the upgrades to install, and click INSTALL UPGRADES.
5. After a few minutes, refresh the vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager UI and click Settings > Update.
   If the Reboot button is not visible, wait a few minutes and repeat this step.
6. Click Reboot and finish the upgrade process.

After the reboot, vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager displays the message Upgrade Completed Successfully if the upgrade is successful.

Configure new Product Binaries

Next step is to configure the new product binaries which you downloaded from My VMware. Make sure you download the correct binaries. There are different binaries for install and upgrade. To upgrade vRealize you will need the update binaries.

1. Click Settings and click the Product Binaries tab.
2. Click Add Product Binaries
3. Select the location type.
   Local or NFS to map to a downloaded product binary with products dependent on the product binary location, or select My VMware to map to product binary downloaded from My VMware.
4. Enter the location of the Product Binary to use in the Base Location text box, and click Discover
5. Select the Product Binary file from the Product Binary list.
6. Click Add
   

I assume this is an upgrade and you already have configured your MyVMware credentials,  created an environment in vRLCM, added a data center to vRCLM and added a vCenter Server target to vRLCM. If not, just follow the links to do so first. You will also need to import your existing environment first, before we can perform an upgrade.

Upgrade individual components

Once you’ve done that, you’re ready to upgrade vRealize components. Again, it is wise to create a snapshot of the vRealize components you’re about to upgrade, in case something goes wrong. As far as I know there is no specific order in which to perform the upgrade.