Upgrading Cloud Foundation components

Cloud Foundation uses Update Bundles to upgrade Cloud Foundation components.

These bundles comprise of a specific VMware software bill of materials which is validated and tested, and then released to the VMware Depot for download – giving you confidence and peace of mind in knowing that an upgrade is not going to be disruptive.

Components include SDDC Manager and internal services, vCenter Server, ESXi, vSAN, NSX-T and vRSLCM.  vRealize Suite products, and Workspace ONE Access are lifecycle managed using vRSLCM.

The update bundles can be downloaded and applied manually, or they can be scheduled to run within your chosen maintenance window.

Update bundles can be configured to downloaded automatically once a MyVMware account is registered with SDDC Manager 

Bundles are broken down by product and can be applied separately.

SDDC Manager provides notifications when a new bundle is available and ensures updates are applied in the correct order 

Notes:

New to VCF 4.4: Once VCF 4.4 is deployed, vRealize suite component patching and upgrades is lifecycle managed through vRSLCM and no longer appear in SDDC Manager as part of an updated VCF bundle.  This allows VCF 4.4 environments to run any “compatible” updated vRealize product.  vRSLCM in this model is performing the check for compatibility based on what has been released in the VCF.vRealize Interoperability Matrix.  This allows VCF 4.4 environments the flexibility to be upgraded to the most current versions of vRealize without having to wait for an updated VCF version (bill of materials) to be released.

References:

For further information on vRSLCM Flexible upgrades please reference the vRealize section of this Technical Deep Dive.