It is time to update the vRealize Operations Manager (vROPS) instance in my lab to vROPS 8.1 which came out a few weeks ago. At the time I updated vRealize Life Cycle Manager to the latest version in preparation.

Within vRLCM it showed a couple of notifications showing other product updates available, one for vIDM and one for vROPS.

Procedure

To start the process of updating vROPS I went into Product Binaries within vRSLCM and initiated a download of the only vROPS 8.1 upgrade file that was showing as available.

Whilst this was downloading I proceeded to look into my environment. In this instance vROPS is deployed in the ‘Stockholm_vRealize’ environment which I clicked on in order to get to the vROPS deployment.

Within the vROPS deployment it shows that the current version is 8.0.1 which can also be confirmed on the ‘About VMware vRealize Operations Manager’ dialogue box in vROPs itself.

Upgrade

When ready to proceed click on the upgrade link on the vROPS deployment in vRSLCM which begins the workflow. The first screen shows a couple of pre-req tasks that should be completed before proceeding. I had already confirmed the Inventory was in Sync so I clicked on ‘Take Product Snapshot’.

A new screen opens that allows a name for the snapshot to be set. Leave the ‘Snapshot with Memory’ box unchecked. Click Submit and if you like you can watch the workflow proceed.

With the snapshot successfully created we can click ‘proceed‘.
Now the next screen shows a compatibility matrix which helps you decide if the vROPS upgrade will be compatible with other products in your SDDC. In the lab everything is good so I click ‘next’.

The wizard will ask to run an assessment of the current environment to advise if any content needs to be updated or changed. This is important as some items may change and / or not be available in the new version that we are attempting to upgrade to.

Once the assessment completes you can view it on screen as well as download the report. This is useful for resolving issues later. Here I click ‘view report‘.

In this case the report shows that there is no content that would be affected by an upgrade.

Side Issue – vRSLCM DISK SPACE

Meantime, whilst I was running the assessment I noticed a warning appear on the interface that disk space was running low on the vRSLCM appliance. This was odd as there should not have been much in the repository. It turned out that in the background another newer version of the vROPS upgrade was downloading. As you can see in the screenshot I now had 2 different upgrade files with one marked as ‘upgradevapakold’ under component name. To be safe I removed that old one and left only the later upgrade file. Freeing up disk space.

Back to the upgrade

With the assessment complete the wizard asks to carry out a Pre-Check which must be completed before upgrading. Click ‘Run Pre-Check’

All being well the pre-check will complete with no issue. If there are issues these may need to be resolved before proceeding. The wizard will only let you do so once it is happy. Once completed we are ready to ‘submit’ the upgrade request.

During the upgrade we can follow the task through the vRSLCM Request Details page. Depending on the size of the vROPS instance this could take some time.

Meantime I logged into the admin interface of vROPS and saw the update had taken the cluster offline and was in the process of installing the upgrade.

After a little wait the vROPS node rebooted causing me to relog into the admin interface where I could see the version number had changed.

The upgrade still has some tasks to complete.
Once it is ready it will restart the cluster and we can log back into the vROPS interface and double check that the new version is correct and all is working.

Product documentation

• Managing Environments with vRSLCM 8.1 can be found on the VMware website.
• vROPS 8.1 can be found on the VMware website