Upgrading vROPS (vRealize Operations Manager) to 8.6 via the .pak file

In this guide we will go over upgrading vROPS (vRealize Operations Manager) to the latest 8.6 releases using the .pak file. If you you vRSLCM (vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager) i would strongly recommend upgrading using the vRSLCM method found here as it does additional checks of the environment like compatibility with the rest of the vRealize Products we might have installed. The release notes for vROPS 8.6 can be found here

To get started we need to download the .pak file from the new customerconnect portal (previously known as my vmware). The direct link to the product download page can be found here. Make sure we have 8.6 selected under the Select Version and click on any of the Go To Downloads links

Once were at the Product Download Page we can download the .pak file under vRealize Operations Manager – Virtual Appliance upgrade .pak file with Cloud Proxy. I also strongly recommend to download the vRealize Operations 8.6.0 – Upgrade Assessment Tool in order to make sure that everything is in order to get a successful upgrade. The Upgrade assessment tool checks for a number of items like dashboards, views, reports etc which can be impacted by metric changes (if any), however it is optional.

Once we click on the download link if were not logged on we will get asked for the login information. This login information is the same as the login to open tickets. Accept the EULA and the download should start

Once we have the downloads completed we can go to https://vrops_url/admin and log in with the admin username\password. Make sure the System Status shows Online and everything is running.

On the left side menu click on Software Update -> Install a software update button

Next we can upload the Upgrade assessment tool in order to run the upgrade assessment (optional) by clicking browse -> select the downloaded .pak file in my case APUAT-8.6.0.18696447.pak and click on Upload

The upload button will stage the package on the vROPS server. We can review the details and click on Next

Accept the terms of agreement and click Next

Review the important notes and click Next

Click Install

We can now follow the installation progress

Once the install is complete we will see the status as completed.

Next lets go and review the tool`s output by going to Support -> Support bundles -> Select the bundle that was just generated and click on the download button

Extract the content of the zip file and go to the apuat-data\report folder and open the index.html. Here we can review Removed\Discontinued Metrics, Dashboards that might be effected as well as a number of system validation checks.

If everything looks good we can return to the admin UI and upload the product upgrade package under Software Update -> Install a software update -> Brose to the downloaded .pak file -> Click on Upload to stage the package -> Click on Next. Follow the rest of the screens till we click submit.

Once the the system is finished the server will get rebooted on the new 8.6 version

Upgrading vROPS (vRealize Operations Manager) to 8.6 via vRSLCM

In this post i will go over upgrading my 8.x vROPS appliance to 8.6 using vRSLCM (vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager). As a pre requirement we do need to have vRSLCM (vRealize Lifecycle Manager) upgraded to 8.6. Instructions can be found here. The upgrade already includes the latest Product Support Pack so an update to the Product Support Pack is not required.

To get started we can go to vRealize Lifecycle Manager -> Lifecycle Operations -> Settings -> Binary Mapping. (If you haven’t added your My VMware credentials you will need to do that first by going to vRealize Lifecycle Manager -> Lifecycle Operations -> Settings -> My VMware)

Click on Add Binaries under Product Binaries

Select My VMware and click on Discover

We can see a list of binaries that have been discovered. Make sure we select the upgrade package not the install package. We can select what we need and click on Add

This will create a request and start downloading the package. To view the progress we can click on the Click Here hyperlink

Click on the in Progress button to view the details

We now have to wait for the download to complete

After the download is complete we can go to Environments -> View Details on the environment that includes vROPS

Click on Upgrade

An Inventory sync is recommended if the environment has changed since LCM performed the last sync. We trigger the sync from the UI or click on Proceed to continue

Select product Version 8.6.0 and click Next. We can also review the compatibility matrix to make sure the environment is compatible.

Run the Upgrade Assessment tool to make sure the currently used dashboards, reports, metrics etc are still compatible with the new version

Once the report has finished running we can either Download or view the report. Once everything has been reviewing we can click on the I have viewed the report and agree to proceed box and click next to proceed to the next step.

A new feature that was added was the capability to automatically create a snapshot prior to the upgrade and remove it after the upgrade. On this screen we also have the ability to chose if we want to keep the snapshots post upgrade for validation testing for example. Click next

Run the Precheck to make sure there are no errors or issues.

Once the check is complete we can review the checks that were performed and we can continue by clicking Next.

Review the upgrade details and click on Next. We are taken to the progress screen where we can follow the progress.

The system will get rebooted and once its back up we will be on 8.6

Since we are doing a major upgrade i strongly recommend to clean the cache before using the new vROPS version.

Upgrading vRA (vRealize Automation) to 8.6

In this post i will go over upgrading my 8.x vRA appliance to 8.6. As a pre requirement we do need to have vRSLCM (vRealize Lifecycle Manager) upgraded to 8.6. Instructions can be found here. The upgrade already includes the latest Product Support Pack so an update to the Product Support Pack is not required.

To get started we can go to vRealize Lifecycle Manager -> Lifecycle Operations -> Settings -> Binary Mapping. (If you haven’t added your My VMware credentials you will need to do that first by going to vRealize Lifecycle Manager -> Lifecycle Operations -> Settings -> My VMware)

Click on Add Binaries under Product Binaries

Select My VMware and click on Discover

We can see a list of binaries that have been discovered. We can select what we need and click on Add

This will create a request and start downloading the package. To view the progress we can click on the Click Here hyperlink

Click on the in Progress button to view the details

We now have to wait for the download to complete

After the download is complete we can go to Environments -> View Details on the environment that includes vRA

Click on Upgrade

An Inventory sync is recommended if the environment has changed since LCM performed the last sync. We trigger the sync from the UI or click on Proceed to continue

Select product Version 8.6.0 and click Next. We can also review the compatibility matrix to make sure the environment is compatible.

Anew feature that was added was the capability to automatically create a snapshot prior to the upgrade and remove it after the upgrade. On this screen we also have the ability to chose if we want to keep the snapshots post upgrade for validation testing for example. Click next

Run the Precheck to make sure there are no errors

The next screen remind us of hardware requirements for vRA and vIDM which can be checked here for vRA and vIDM which can be checked here. As far as i can tell they haven’t changed since the 8.3 release. Check the I took care of the manual steps above and am ready to proceed check mark and click on Run Precheck

Once the check is complete we can review the checks that were performed and we can continue by clicking Next.

Review the upgrade details and click on Next. We are taken to the progress screen where we can follow the progress.

The system will get rebooted and once its back up we will be on 8.6

Since we are doing a major upgrade i strongly recommend to clean the cache before using the new vRA version.

Skip-Level Upgrading VCF 4.1.0.1 to 4.3.1.0 Step by Step

With the release of of VCF 4.3.1 i wanted to get my lab upgraded. The release blog can be found here and the release notes are here

In order to get to 4.3.1.0 in the past we had to upgrade to each version incrementally. As per the documentation found here we can now upgrade from any release past 4.1.0.1 directly to 4.3.1 skipping the releases in between. We can do so by going to Repository -> Bundle management -> Download now. Download the Configuration drift bundle as well as the Update package.

The next step is to upgrade VCF by going to Inventory -> Workload Domains -> Select the workload domain -> Update/Patches -> Update Now for the VMware Cloud Foundation Update 4.3.1.0.

Next we are taken to the Upgrade page where we can follow the upgrade for each one of the components

Once the upgrade is complete we can click Finish to be returned back to the main screen

Because we are changing the SDDC-Manager versions i would strongly recommend to clear cache and log back in before going forward.

Next step is to upgrade NSX-T installation to NSX-T 3.1.3.1. The release notes can be found here. We can go to inventory -> Workload Domains -> Select the workload domain -> Update/Patches -> Under Available updates click on the drop down and select Cloud Foundation 4.3.1.0 -> Download now.

Once the download is complete we can proceed with updating the NSX component by clicking on the update now

The upgrade will go thought upgrading the NSX managers as well as the edges. We can view the upgrade status by clicking on view status

Once the upgrade is complete we can proceed with the vCenter Upgrade. VCF 4.3.1.0 comes with vCenter Server 7.0 Updated 2d. The release notes can be found here. We can go to inventory -> Workload Domains -> Select the workload domain -> Update/Patches -> Under Available updates click on the drop down and select Cloud Foundation 4.3.1.0 -> Download now.

Once the download is complete we can click on Update now

We can follow the status of the upgrade by clicking on the view status tab

Here we can see the different components that are getting upgraded

Once the upgrade is complete we are taken back to the previous page where we can see that the ESXi servers are next. The release notes can be found here. Click on Download Now

Once the download is complete we can click on Update now

If we have multiple clusters we can enable Cluster-level selection and select the specific cluster(s) we want to upgrade.

We can also enable sequential cluster upgrade as well as quick boot

We get to review the options once again before we click finish to to submit the task

Once submitted we can view the status by clicking on View Status

And with that we are finished with the workload domain. We can get back to the Update/Patches page

vROPS 8.6 UI Overview

During VMworld 2021 we announced vRealize Operations 8.6 which now provides allot of new features and capabilities. You can see an Whats New overview here as well as a feature walk through here.

I this post we will focus specifically on the UI enhancements. The UI changes are the same for the SaaS version as well as the on premise release. Lets dive in!

When we used to log on to vRealize Operations in the past we used to have a list of menu items up top as well as the left side example:

The new simplified navigation interface creates a smoother navigation with enhancements like favorites for dashboards, a new administration page, the ability to pin dashboards and views as well as support for expressions in custom groups. With the UI enhancements we now also have the ability to customize the menu for Non-admins in order to provide the end users of the product with only the access they require.

Here is a quick glimpse into favorites as well as the pinning:

From a navigation perspective the side menu automatically collapses while navigating in order to give us more space to navigate through the menus. With the redesigned UI we now have secondary navigation allowing us to navigate through the menu`s allot easier without having to go back and forward to get where we need to

The object browser also allows us to switch to the correlation mapping by just pressing the toggle switch up top. The correlation mapping is allot easier to navigate as well. In the example below i have an example of a correlation mapping spanning from the PDU system which monitors the power as well as the cabinet that can monitor the fan speeds via the Flowgate management pack that can be downloaded from the Marketplace

The home page has received a couple of enhancements as well with a couple of new additions

vCenter upgrade fails with Exception occurred in postinstallHook error

I was recently going through a vCenter upgrade and got stuck at an error Exception occurred in postinstallHook. I tried reverting from snapshot and trying again but i ran through the same issue.

The issue in my case was that the catalina.properties had the wrong permissions. The fix was to change the permissions to perfcharts:cis and then resuming the update in the VAMI interface. The catalina.properties is located /usr/lib/vmware-perfcharts/tc-instance/conf/catalina.properties. The command to fix it is

chown perfcharts:cis /usr/lib/vmware-perfcharts/tc-instance/conf/catalina.properties

Then restart the vmware-perfcharts service by running:

service-control --stop vmware-perfcharts
service-control --start vmware-perfcharts

Upgrading vRSLCM (vRealize Lifecycle Manager) to 8.6

In this guide i will go over the steps of getting an existing 8.x vRSLCM appliance upgraded to the latest 8.6 release. The release notes can be found here

The first step is to lo in to vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager under the Lifecycle Operations section

Go to settings -> System Upgrade

Click on Check for Upgrade

We can see that the check found a new version available for 8.6.0.20

Click on Upgrade

Verify that a snapshot or backup exists in case the process fails. Check the check mark for I took a snapshot of the vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager before I performed this operation. Click Submit

This will fire up the upgrade process and start upgrading packages. The system will automatically reboot on 8.6.0.20 once completed. We can check the version by going to Settings -> System Details

If you get the below error clear the browser cache and try again

Error Code: LCMVSSC10018

If you like me deployed SSC (SaltStack Config) outside of LCM and are now trying to import it under LCM management you probably ran in to the following error:

Error Code: LCMVSSC10018
vRealize Automation SaltStack Config import failed as unable to validate license. Check whether proper license is applied to vRealize Automation SaltStack Config appliance.
Exception while importing vRealize Automation SaltStack Config as unable to validate the license key. Check vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager logs for more information

Ive tried to research the issue but i had no luck. The following steps worked for my environment.

Find the license key for SaltStack under the my vmware portal. It would be labeled vRealize Automation SaltStack Config entitlement ex:

Once you have the key create a file under /etc/raas/something_license

In this file add the key from the my vmware portal

Change the owner of the file to the raas user by running

chown raas:raas /etc/raas/yourfilename_license
systemctl restart raas

Additionally also make sure the license key is available in the lifecycle manager locker. If you need help with the locker you can find instructions on how adding the new key here

You should now be able to import the SSC install into LCM

Usage Report for vRealize Cloud Licenses

In this post i will go over the Usage Report for vRealize Cloud Licenses. I will cover the online method which does the reporting automatically as well as the offline method that requires us to upload the usage manually. The documentation for the Usage Report can be found here. The vRealize Cloud Universal service description EULA and requirements can be found here.

As described the EULA our responsibilities include:

  • Deploy the latest version of vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager in your on-premiseenvironment, and establish a connection between vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager and your VMware customer account.
  • Use vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager to apply the vRealize Cloud Universal license key to on-premise components of the Service Offering and activate these components.
  • Connect vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager to vRealize Cloud Subscription Manager to enable usage reporting to VMware. If the on-premise environment is offline and unable to connect to vRealize Cloud Subscription Manager, you are responsible for periodically exporting a license report from vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager and uploading the report to vRealize Cloud Subscription Manager, but no less than once per VMware fiscal quarter.

We will be spending most of our time in vRealize® Suite Lifecycle Manager. Log in and go to the locker page either from the welcome screen

Or the menu on the top right:

Once in locker we can go to Licenses and search for our subscription license. The license will show up as vRealizeFlex under the license type

If there are no licenses showing up you probably don’t have the my VMware account logged on. You can follow the instructions in my other post here to add the my VMware account.

Now if we click on the 3 dots to right we get to see a menu for things like Usage report, view usage and so on

The online sync option is very straight forward. All we need to do is click on Connect License and provide an API token.

The API token generation instructions can be found in the official documentation here. The next step is to match the license key with a subscription and then setup the reporting frequency. Unfortunately i dont have an cloud subscription that i have permissions to match my key with.

The next option is the offline usage report. Keep in mind that the report will need to be updated multiple times a year as required by the EULA. To create the report we can go to Usage Report in the dropdown menu

Select vRealize Cloud Subscription Manager Billing

Click on download. Once the download is completed you can upload the file in the subscription manager.