Finally had some time to upgrade our lab environment at work. VMware Horizon DaaS 8.0 had been released last week and with this new DaaS platform, and we are now able to run vSphere 6.5 U1, as Horizon DaaS 7.0 only officially supported vSphere 6.0 U3.

I decided to install two complete new vCenter Server Appliances (VCSA) based on 6.5 U1. The installation process is fairly simple, so I’m not going to cover these steps in this blog.

Since VCSA 6.5, the VMware Update Manager (VUM) feature is built into the appliance, let’s see how the upgrade process works for the ESXi nodes!

Pre-Reqs

After I had double-checked if the NICs, Storage Controllers, and all other hardware components were officially supported by looking at the VMware Compatibility Guide I downloaded the ESXi ISO at the MyVMware website.

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vSphere Web Client

Next, upload the downloaded ISO file to the VCSA.  Open the vSphere Web Client (flash version), click on the vSphere cluster and click “Go to Admin View”

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Next, click the Manage tab, ESXi Images, Import ESXi Image

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Import the ISO file. When done, click close.

 

Next, create a baseline. Fill in the baseline name and press OK.

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Switch back to the Hosts & Clusters view, select the vSphere cluster, tab Update Manager.  Select the just created baseline, press OK.

 

Once the baseline is attached,  the ESXi nodes in the cluster can be upgraded. We start to initiate this process by pressing the Remediate button.

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The Remediate wizard appears. These steps involved are:

  1. Select the baseline
  2. Select the target objects (ESXi nodes in the cluster)
  3. Accept the EULA
  4. Advanced options (Scheduling and Warning options)
  5. Host remediation options (Maintenance Mode options and ESXi patch settings)
  6. Cluster remediation options (Options to disable DPM, HA, FT etc)
  7. Ready to complete!

Some screenshots:

 

After the Remediation wizard is finished, the ESXi node(s) in the cluster will automatically go into Maintenance Mode and start the upgrade procedure.

 

Conclusion

As you can read, it’s not very difficult to update your vSphere environment to a new release. Does this mean I didn’t run into any problems at all? No, unfortunately not. I ran into a small problem concerning the boot-LUN from my ESXi nodes. Please refer to my next blog how I solved the problem!