Upgrading ESXi hosts using VMware Update Manager

Unlike many operating systems, VMware ESXi gives you a nice tool to upgrade their hypervisor to the latest version.  VMware Update Manager gives you the ability to grab the latest build and apply it to your existing ESXi hosts.

I should mention that VMware Update Manager is not the only solution to upgrade your ESXi hosts.  Hosts can also be upgraded manually by booting the host to the latest build and performing an upgrade, or by utilizing the new autodeploy features in vSphere 5.  VMware Update Manager is a simple tool that can automate the installs on several hosts in sequence and is available with all editions of vSphere 5.

Deploy a new Image

To begin we access the Update Manager Utility by going to the Solutions and Applications section of the vSphere client.  From there choose the ESXi Images tab to see what builds are available.  In the example below there are no builds available, so we want to import the latest one.  Choose the “Import ESXi Image…” link to start the import process.

From here, a wizard will start up asking for the location of your .iso file containing the latest build.

We will then check the box to Create a baseline using this image.  This will be useful when we scan and deploy the image to hosts.

Now we can see the latest image has been imported into VUM for deployment.

Next go to the Hosts and Clusters view of the vSphere client and choose either a host or a cluster.  Go to the VUM tab and the option to attach a baseline will be shown.  Here, you can select the baseline that we created earlier and attach it to either a single host, or a group of hosts in the cluster.

Next we will want to scan either our Cluster or a specific host for updates.  This can be done by right clicking either the Cluster or host from the “Hosts and Clusters” view of the vSphere client.  Scanning the cluster might be the most efficient way of scanning all of the hosts, but if you only plan to deploy the upgrade to one host, that option is available.

Once the scans have completed, the Upgrade can be deployed by again, right clicking on the Host or Cluster and choosing the “Remediate…” option.

A wizard will appear asking for which baseline to upgrade to.

Read and approve the EULA.

A message will then show up about rolling back to the previous version should the upgrade fail.  There is an option to remove third-party software modules.  Pay close attention to this screen if you are using any third-party plugins in ESXi.

The nice thing about VUM is that you can schedule your updates for after hours if you want to reduce the impact to production activities.  Give your task a descriptive name for self documentation purposes and schedule when the update should be deployed.

Next, there will be some options about the state of your virtual machines during the patching process.  You can choose to change power state as well as retrying the update in case of a failure.

Lastly, the Cluster Remediation options will show up allowing you to temporarily modify Distributed Power Management (DPM) and High Availability admission control options as well as Fault Tolerance options during the patching process.