VMware vRealize Suite products have been upgraded to version 8.0. These major updates forced an update of my entire management portfolio for vSphere. I ended up upgrading not just vRealize Suite, but also NSX-V, vCenter, Horizon View, and my Unified Access Gateways (UAGs). This vSphere Upgrade Saga was a comprehensive update of all subsystems.
As it turns out, this upgrade was less Saga and more Business as Usual. There were really no surprises. Going to vRealize Operations and vRealize Log Insight version 8.0 went seamlessly. Upgrading vCenter was also seamless. However, a subsequent upgrade did cause an unexpected issue. More on that later. The major overhaul was to my Horizon View install. For that, I upgraded from 7.5 to 7.11, rebuilt my golden images, and updated my Unified Access Gateway.
The plan was simple: upgrade one tool in place, then move on to the next.
The Upgrade
Each upgrade was pretty seamless, as I stated before. The upgrades were:
- vCenter would not upgrade, but KB 70963 solved that problem.
- vRealize Log Insight upgraded without a hitch.
- vRealize Operations upgraded without a hitch.
- vSphere Replication upgraded without a hitch. The upgrade from CR-ROM approach was used.
- NSX-V upgraded without a hitch but requried a browser refresh as usual.
- HPE OneView upgraded without a hitch. There is no support for the HPE BladeSystem c3000 Enclosure. More on this in an upcoming article.
- HPE OneView for vCenter upgraded without a hitch.
- HPE OneView Global Dashboard upgraded without a hitch.
- HPE StoreVirtual upgraded without a hitch.
- UAG has no upgrade path, but you can just redeploy using the provided PowerShell script. Everything you need to edit the INI files is documented by Carl Stalhood. This was a surprisingly simple replacement with very few simple INI file edits.
- Horizon View, on the other hand, required a bit more work—namely, around certificates and operating system versions.
Horizon View
Horizon took much longer to update, as I did a rip and replace. The reason for this was that my Windows OS was woefully out of date, and the certificates for nearly everything were out of date. This required a clean install. My Horizon View environment is small and the golden image needs a rebuild, so why not the connection broker as well.
The reinstall of Horizon View had only one hitch. Everything was now based on the hostname, not the IP, so certificates created required me to use the fully qualified domain name instead of the IP address to access the Horizon View management interface. Not a big deal, but I tend to use both. Now I can only use the FQDN.
Next, I redeployed the Horizon View Composer, as currently I use linked clones. That will change in the coming year. Lastly, I upgraded the golden image’s OS and updated all the VMware Tools, View, and the vRealize agents. I even hooked up Horizon View to my existing databases. At this point, I was ready to re-create my desktops.
A few years ago, I changed to use Profiles so user configurations are not lost. This allows for easier rebuilds of all Windows desktops.
Conclusion
The vSphere Upgrade Saga is becoming routine and more of a science than a saga. While there were saga-ish elements to this upgrade, most things were business as usual. I think I spent more time downloading than I did upgrading, with the exception of Horizon View. A re-create is sometimes the best approach to save on time.
Update 2/4/20: Added vSphere Replication upgrade to the list
