Overall, the post provides a detailed guide on how to enable vSphere Lifecycle Management (vLCM) on VxRail. The screenshots included in the post are helpful in visualizing the process. VxRail support for vLCM has been around for quite some time now (Introduced in VxRail 7.0.240) but there has been some notable enahancements to the process which get detailed below.

Please review the following VMware vLCM documentation to provide a better understanding of how vLCM functions:

Introducing vSphere Lifecycle Management (vLCM)

From a VxRail perspective the following overviews detail the entire VxRail vLCM process & functionality:

The VxRail Advantage – VxRail LCM and vLCM better together

Delivering VxRail simplicity with vLCM compatibility

Please note the following:

  • VxRail cluster must be running version 7.0.240 or later.
  • VMware vLCM enablement is not supported on VxRail E460/F, P470/F, S470, V470/F.
  • VMware vLCM enablement cannot be reversed.
  • Cluster must be upgraded using legacy LCM to version 7.0.240 or later before attempting to enable vLCM.​
  • VxRail composite packages remain the source bundles for both legacy LCM and vLCM driven upgrades.
  • From VxRail release 7.0.450 onwards an enhancment was made to the enablement process by automating the steps outlined in VMware KB85819.

Use the VMware vSphere Web Client to enable VMware vSphere Lifecycle manager (vLCM):

Proceed to verify the vCenter Credentials:

On verification it notices there is a self-signed certificate in place and will suggest that the VxRail will try to apply the workaround as per the VMware KB (as oultined above this is from VxRail 7.0.450 onwards):

Credential verified successfully & the VxRail signed certificate was added successfully to the SSL certs folder on VCSA (as per VMware KB):

Validation in progress:

Validation complete click ‘Next’:

Enble vLCM for the VxRail:

vLCM successfully enabled:

After vLCM is enabled for VxRail you will notice that the depot settings for vSphere Lifecycle Manager in vCenter are updated to point to the folders in VxRail Manager as the source depots:

Thanks for reading!

1 Comment »

Leave a comment