This blog post describes the easy few steps to upgrade vCenter Server through the VAMI.
If you’re looking for the faster method with Reduced Downtime Upgrade (RDU), available from vCenter 8.0 GA onwards, please check KB92659, or one of my next blog posts.
Things not to forget:
- Read the Release Notes, in my case for vCenter 8.0 U2c.
- Check Interoperability with all other VMware software
- Create a file-based backup
- Create a cold snapshot with the vCenter Server VM turned off
Process
Login to VAMI with root credentials, port 5480, e.g. https://vcsa.dmware.local:5480
Navigate to Backup, and create a file-based backup (through FTP, FTPS, SMB, NFS, etc)
Did I tell you that you need to make sure you have a file-based backup available, so you can restore in case of need.
Navigate to Update and wait for the Updates to show
Select the appropriate update and Click Stage and Install
Pre-Update checks are performed; this can take a while.
If you have done it right, no results appear from the Pre-Update Checks; however, in my case a warning to make sure you have a recent File-Based backup.
Agree to the End user License Agreement
Make sure to have an appropriate backup; a snapshot will also work in most cases.
Click Finish
The Installation is In Progress.
The current status is shown
This last step in the update takes the longest
Wait for 30+ minutes, and voila
It takes a little while until the vCenter Server comes back up, so be patient while checking the console response.
From the VAMI (port 5480) and the vSphere client you can check the update is reflected in the build number
Issues
What I ran into, is the following: an error appears during the Pre-Install phase of a vCenter Upgrade (in my case: 8.0U2a to 8.0U2c): “Internal error occurs during execution of update process. Pre-Install failed for vpxd:Expand”
KB96830 describes a workaround (start services lookupsvc and sts from SSH), which did not do anything at all… Even the restart of the services did not make a change. As the Information link suggests, you will have to rely on your created backup file to restore vCenter.
If you the Resume vCenter update three times, you only have the option to Rollback to the previous version. I’m sure you have created the necessary snapshot, in order to troubleshoot. However, as long as KB96830 is not updated -or a new vCenter release is published- the Restore from Backup option would your best shot.