DavidRing.ie

For each VVD Region there exists 4x vCSA appliances, this includes a load balanced pair of PSC’s and 2x vCenter’s per Region. The two vCenters are deployed to the first availability zone in each region. One vCenter Server supporting the SDDC management components and one vCenter Server supporting the edge components and tenant workloads. All PSC appliances are joined to a single SSO domain in a ring topology and an NSX ESG (Per Region) is used as a LB for these PSC’s.  More VVD vCenter Architectural Design details here:

VVD vCenter Server Deployment

The upgrade sequence is as follows:

The upgrade begins in Region A by upgrading the PSC appliances which are configured in a highly available pair, in order to keep the PSC appliances alive you direct all network traffic to one PSC instance while the other PSC is being upgraded. Please refer to the VMware VVD Upgrade Guide for the detailed steps:

Upgrade the Management vCenter Server and All Platform Services Controller Instances in Region A and Region B

Before proceeding with a vCSA upgrade please:

1. Check the interop matrix vCenter upgrade path
2. Check vCSA health status in VAMI console
3. Take a file level backup of your vCSA (post here details how to backup)
4. Take snapshots of the vCSA’s
5. Refer to VMware release notes to ensure upgrade compatibility

You will have to repeat the following steps as per VVD guidance as VVD architectures use an external PSC and have a multi-vCenter solution with Enhanced Linked Mode as detailed above. In this example upgrade (stress example, always refer to VMware official guidance for such procedures) I show how to upgrade a single vCSA PSC appliance, you simply repeat the process for any additional vCSA appliances in your SSO domain (as per VVD upgrade sequence). PSC appliances need to be upgraded first and it is a migration of the old PSC to the new PSC. The 6.5->6.7 upgrade deploys a new appliance running version 6.7 and migrates the database, a temporary IP is need for this process, once the migration complete the original IP is transferred and the old vCSA gets powered down.

Before proceeding with upgrade:

1. Check release notes.
2. Check the interop matrix for support.

Stage 1

• Run the installer.exe from the vcsa-ui-installer/win32 directory.
• Click on the Upgrade option
• Click Next – Stage 1 Deploy New Appliance
• Accept terms
• Enter IP address of the source vCSA
• Enter the Source vCSA SSO creds and the vCenter that manages this vCSA
• Click YES to Cert warning
• Enter target vCenter IP and login details
• Click YES to Cert warning
• Select Datacenter vCSA will get deployed in
• Select an ESXi host in the cluster to deploy the vCSA to
• Enter a display name for the new vCSA vm and a root password
• Specify the target datastore (in this case it is a VxRail vSAN datatsore as this is a VVD on VxRail solution).
• Select the VM network used for the vCSA and enter a temp IP address details in that subnet
• Verify inputs and click on FINISH to kick off Stage 1 of the upgrade
• You can track progress from the vSphere Client
• On successful completion of Stage 1 click CONTINUE to proceed to Stage 2

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Stage 2

• Once Stage 1 completes continue the upgrade wizard by clicking on the Stage 2 option (if the installer window closes you can kick off Stage 2 via the VAMI console: temp_IP:5480)
• As this example is vCSA PSC upgrade enter the Source PSC credentials
• Chose whether or not to Join VMware CEIP
• Confirm the source PSC has been backed up and click FINISH
• Click OK to the shutdown warning
• Once the upgrade completes check the new vCSA health status using VAMI

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Repeat the process for the associated vCenter and any other vCSA appliances in the SSO domain as outlined by the VVD upgrade guide.