6.7

Table Of Contents
Prerequisites for Upgrading the vCenter Server Appliance
or Platform Services Controller Appliance
To ensure successful upgrade of the vCenter Server Appliance or Platform Services Controller appliance,
you must preform some required tasks and pre-checks before running the upgrade.
General Prerequisites
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Download and Mount the vCenter Server Appliance Installer.
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Verify that the clocks of all machines on the vSphere network are synchronized. See Synchronizing
Clocks on the vSphere Network.
Target System Prerequisites
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Verify that your system meets the minimum software and hardware requirements. See System
Requirements for the New vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller Appliance.
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If you plan to deploy the new appliance on an ESXi host, verify that the target ESXi host is not in
lockdown or maintenance mode.
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If you plan to deploy the new appliance on an ESXi host, verify that the target ESXi host is not part of
a fully automated DRS cluster.
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If you plan to deploy the new appliance on a DRS cluster of the inventory of a vCenter Server
instance, verify that the cluster contains at least one ESXi host that is not in lockdown or maintenance
mode.
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If you plan to deploy the new appliance on a DRS cluster of the inventory of a vCenter Server
instance, verify that the cluster is not fully automated.
Source System Prerequisites
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Ensure that DRS is set to manual for the cluster temporarily so that the VMs for the Source and
Target do not get moved during the upgrade.
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Verify that port 22 is open on the appliance that you want to upgrade. The upgrade process
establishes an inbound SSH connection to download the exported data from source appliance.
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If you are upgrading a vCenter Server Appliance that is configured with Update Manager, run the
Migration Assistant on the source Update Manager machine.
For GUI upgrade, you must run the Migration Assistant manually. See Download and Run VMware
Migration Assistant on the Source Update Manager Machine.
For CLI upgrade, you can run the Migration assistant either manually or automatically. To run the
Migration Assistant automatically, add the source.vum section section and
run.migration.assistant subsection to your JSON template. See Upgrade Configuration
Parameters.
vCenter Server Upgrade
VMware, Inc. 90