Dell EMC PowerFlex Appliance Administration Guide

Upgrading VMware vCenter infrastructure management components

Use this procedure to upgrade the VMware vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA) on the PowerFlex appliance controller node.

1. Take a snapshot of the VMware vSphere Management VMs (PowerFlex Manager appliance, VMware Controller vCenter, embedded operating system jump server, Secure Remote Services Gateway, PowerFlex Gateway, PowerFlex presentation server - optional is the CloudLink Center).
   1. Check the datastore disk usage to verify that enough disk space is available to create snapshots.
   2. Right-click and select Snapshot > Take Snapshot.
   3. Enter a name and description, clear the Snapshot the virtual machine's memory and click OK.
   4. Repeat these steps for each management VM.
2. Log in to the VMware vCenter appliance management port and create a backup.
   1. Use the backup utility https://{FQDN}:5480 to create a backup.
3. Using the VMware vSphere client, upload the VMware-vCenter-Server-Appliance-X.x.x.xxxxx-xxxxxxx-patch-FP.iso to the local datastore on the PowerFlex controller node.
4. From the VMware vSphere client, click Storage > Datacenter > PERC-01 > Files.
   1. Create a folder named ISO (if not created already).
   2. Click the upload icon and upload the required ISO file.
      NOTE This step may fail if the browser finds a certificate that it does not trust. If a failure occurs, upload the ISO files to an existing folder.
   3. Allow time for the upload to complete. You can view the status at the bottom of the screen.
   4. From the VMware vSphere client, select the VM to attach the ISO.
   5. Go to Hosts and Clusters.
   6. On the Summary screen, expand VM Hardware.
   7. Click Edit settings, and then from the CD and DVD drive row, choose Datastore ISO file from menu and check connected.
   8. Click Browse, choose the ISO folder and, select VMware-vCenter-Server-Appliance-X.xxxx. Click OK.
   9. Note the IP addresses of the VM. This is used later.
5. Open Mozilla Firefox on the jump server and go to the IP address of the vCSA appliance VM to be upgraded on port 5480 as noted in the previous step. For example, https://<IP-ADDRESS>:5480 .
6. Log in to the interface with username root and default password VMwar3!!.
   NOTE If you have to change the root password, see the VMware KB article.
7. On the left menu, select Update > Check Updates. Click Check CD ROM. Wait while the system validates the ISO attached earlier.
8. When complete, select Stage and Install. Click I accept and click Next. Clear Join the VMware Customer... and click Next. Check I have backed up vCenter... and click Finish.
9. Click OK. To reboot, right-click the VM from vCenter and Power > Restart Guest OS. Allow up to 10 minutes for the VM to reboot.
   NOTE When rebooting the PowerFlex management controller vCSA, web client connectivity is lost. After the reboot, log back on to the web client.
10. Log in to the VMware vSphere client again and validate that the SSO domain is running, and disconnect the ISO.
    NOTE The VMware vSphere client may take some time to start, as the vCSA can take up to 15 additional minutes to start all VMware vCenter services.
11. Run inventory using PowerFlex Manager:
    1. Log in to PowerFlex Manager.
    2. Click Resourcse > All Resources tab.
    3. Click the checkbox for vCSA. Click Run Inventory.
    4. Click Close.
12. Verify that you have the correct Intelligent Catalog vCenter version, as follows:
    1. Use the vSphere client to log in to the vCenter server.
    2. Click Help > About VMWare vSphere.
    3. A dialog appears with the build number of the VMware vCenter Server. Verify that it matches the requirement.
13. Disconnect the Patch-FP.iso that was previously mounted.