Specifications

For components that are not listed here, you can perform the upgrade by using another upgrade method, or,
for third-party components, by using the appropriate third-party tools.
The following topics describe how to use Update Manager to conduct an orchestrated upgrade of your ESXi
hosts.
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“Configuring Host and Cluster Settings,” on page 167
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“Perform an Orchestrated Upgrade of Hosts Using vSphere Update Manager,” on page 168
To use Update Manager to conduct an orchestrated upgrade of virtual machines on your hosts, see the
Installing and Administering VMware vSphere Update Manager documentation.
Configuring Host and Cluster Settings
When you update vSphere objects in a cluster with DRS, VMware High Availability (HA), and VMware
Fault Tolerance (FT) enabled, you can choose to temporarily disable VMware Distributed Power
Management (DPM), HA admission control, and FT for the entire cluster. When the update completes,
Update Manager restores these features.
Updates might require that the host enters maintenance mode during remediation. Virtual machines cannot
run when a host is in maintenance mode. To ensure availability, vCenter Server can migrate virtual
machines to other ESX/ESXi hosts within a cluster before the host is put into maintenance mode.
vCenter Server migrates the virtual machines if the cluster is configured for vMotion, and if DRS is enabled.
If a host has no running virtual machines, VMware DPM might put the host in standby mode and interrupt
an Update Manager operation. To make sure that scanning and staging complete successfully,
Update Manager disables VMware DPM during these operations. To ensure successful remediation, you
should allow Update Manager to disable VMware DPM and HA admission control before the remediation
operation. After the operation completes, Update Manager restores VMware DPM and HA admission
control. Update Manager disables HA admission control before staging and remediation but not before
scanning.
If VMware DPM has already put hosts in standby mode, Update Manager powers on the hosts before
scanning, staging, and remediation. After the scanning, staging, or remediation is complete,
Update Manager turns on VMware DPM and HA admission control and lets VMware DPM put hosts into
standby mode, if needed. Update Manager does not remediate powered off hosts.
If hosts are put into standby mode and VMware DPM is manually disabled for a reason, Update Manager
does not remediate or power on the hosts.
Within a cluster, you should select to temporarily disable HA admission control to allow vMotion to
proceed, in order to prevent downtime of the machines on the hosts you remediate. After the remediation of
the entire cluster, Update Manager restores HA admission control settings.
If FT is turned on for any of the virtual machines on hosts within a cluster, you should select to temporarily
turn off FT before performing any Update Manager operations on the cluster. If FT is turned on for any of
the virtual machines on a host, Update Manager does not remediate that host. You should remediate all
hosts in a cluster with the same updates, so that FT can be re-enabled after the remediation, because a
primary virtual machine and a secondary virtual machine cannot reside on hosts of different ESX/ESXi
version and patch level.
There are some specifics about remediating hosts that are part of a Virtual SAN cluster:
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The host remediation process might take extensive amount of time to complete.
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By design only one host from a Virtual SAN cluster can be in a maintenance mode at any time.
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Update Manager remediates hosts that are part of a Virtual SAN cluster sequentially even if you select
the option to remediate them in parallel.
Chapter 7 Upgrading and Migrating Your Hosts
VMware, Inc. 167