This is part four in a four part series on upgrading to vSphere 6.5
You can find the rest of the series here
This section of the tutorial will deal with the matter or upgrading ESXi from v6.0 to v6.5 with VCSA 6.5 using the new embedded VMware Update Manager.
Previously, deploying VUM with a VCSA required a separate Windows Server instance and SQL server for its database. VCSA 6.5 has changed all that; and now comes pre-configured with VUM out of the box. I’m going to give a quick overview of the painless and frankly, beautiful, exercise of upgrading ESXi with VUM.
Log in to the VCSA (flash version) and head to the home dashboard. Find and click Update Manager
Select the VCSA that manages the hosts that will be upgraded
Select the Manage tab, ESXi Images, then Import ESXi Images
Find and upload your ESXi 6.5 ISO. You can download it here, if you haven’t already
Success
Head to the Hosts Baselines tab then select New Baseline
Give the baseline a name and select Host Upgrade as the baseline type
On the next page, select the ESXi image you just uploaded
Do itttttt
Head over to the Hosts and Clusters dashboard, select a cluster or datacenter, then the Update Manager tab, then Attach Baseline
You’ll find the baseline you just created under Upgrade Baselines
Once attached, select Scan for Updates
Select as required- probably a good time to upgrade everything unless you have a reason not to
Once the Scan Entity task has finished, head to Stage Patches
Again, select as required
Select hosts to upgrade
Select Upgrade Baseline followed by the ESXi baseline created earlier
Select hosts again
A highly recommended read
Schedule a time for the upgrade to take place, or run now
My preferred options (I run VSAN with DRS and no DPM, YMMV)
Let’s do this thang
Provided you’re running DRS, VUM will now live migrate VMs from a host, put the host into maintenance mode, restart it, update, pull out of maintenance mode and migrate VMs back, one host at a time until all selected hosts have been upgraded.
Beautiful.
You’ve seen how easy this process is; what are you waiting for?
Happy upgrading!