What Is vSphere Update Manager and How to Upgrade It

What is vSphere Update Manager

VMware vSphere Update Manager (VUM) is a vCenter extension that allows for centralized, automated patch and version management for VMware vSphere and provides support for VM and hosts running the VMware ESXi OS.

Since vSphere 7, VMware vSphere Update Manager (VUM) product has evolved and now been called Lifecycle Manager. The difference between them is that vSphere Lifecycle Manager enhances the functionality that vSphere Update Manager (VUM) provided in previous vSphere releases. After deploying vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA), you can access the VLM user interface in the HTML5-based vSphere Client.

With Update Manager, you can perform the following tasks:

• Upgrade and patch ESXi hosts.
• Install and update third-party software on hosts.
• Upgrade virtual machine hardware and VMware Tools.

Prerequisites

On vCenter Server versions earlier than vCenter 6.5, the plug-in is installed manually (including vCenter 6.5 on Windows). If you want to download or upgrade VMware Update Manager, please check the following items.

• A 2GHz processor with two logical cores.
• 2GB RAM for VUM on a different computer from the vCenter Server, and 8 for the same computer.
• Enough VUM database disk space.
• Do not install VUM on a Microsoft Directory domain controller.
• Supported DB: VUM needs a SQL database for its operations, which can be either an Oracle or a Microsoft database. You can use the VMware Interoperability Matrix to match the compatible versions.
• Supported OS:

In vSphere 6.7, VUM is integrated in the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA), and because the VUM client component is a plug-in that runs on the vSphere Web Client, VUM is automatically enabled when the VCSA is deployed.

How to Upgrade ESXi 6.5 to 6.7 Using vSphere Update Manager

In this part, we will perform a major version upgrade from ESXi 6.5 to 6.7. In vSphere Client, click the Update Manager icon to begin.

1. Click ESXi image. Then browse the local disk or enter a URL to have VUM download the file directly. Click Import.

2. After adding an ESXi ISO image to the VUM repository, it is easy to create an upgrade baseline. Select the desired image and click New Baseline.

You should specify a baseline name, verify the ESXi image, and review the details, click Finish.

3. Click Hosts and Clusters, with the cluster selected, click Attach. You can choose one or more baselines to attach to this cluster.

4. With the desired baseline now attached to the cluster, we will have Update Manager check each host to see if they are currently compliant or if they will need to be remediated. Click Check Compliance.

5. Once Update Manager is finished checking each host in the cluster, the results are displayed in the center information card. Here we can see that all four of these hosts are not compliant with the baseline and will need to be remediated. Before we do that, let's run the cluster pre-check to ensure that remediation will be successful. Click Pre-Check Remediation.

6. After Pre-Check finished, click Remediate. Update Manager 6.7 features a new interface with a streamlined flow, and no longer uses the multi-step wizard when remediating. After reviewing the actions that will be taken, click OK.

After Update Manager is finished applying patches to all nodes in the cluster, the status will be updated to show that they are compliant with our chosen patch baseline. Update Manager 6.7 can upgrade hosts to the latest release of VMware ESXi, or it can keep hosts running older versions patched until the time comes to upgrade.

But either for vSphere Update manager or Lifecycle Manager, VMware backup is necessary before upgrading or any risky operations in case of errors and disasters.

Supporting from ESXi 6.x to ESXi 8.0 versions, AOMEI Cyber Backup continues to help VMware backup and restore VMs after the upgrade.

Best VMware vSphere backup software to backup VM in batch

Businesses running mission-critical workloads on vSphere environments require a backup solution that delivers all of today’s backup/data protection demands - Performance, Security, Flexibility and compatibility. 

If you use the free VMware ESXi without vCenter Server, your options for VM backup and restore may be limited by not supporting vStorage APIs. However, even if you use vCenter Server to centrally manage ESXi virtual environments and large numbers of VMs, it does not provide the feature of virtual machine backup. And that makes backup software a commonly accepted choice.

AOMEI Cyber Backup - a specialized enterprise backup tool designed to deliver a powerful and flexible backup solution that helps organizations to effectively meet the backup demands. You can use it to simplify vSphere backup and management with its intuitive web-based wizards.

This reliable vSphere backup solution also delivers features as follows:

Support Free ESXi: AOMEI Cyber Backup supports both paid and free versions of VMware ESXi.
Backup VMs in batch: With the user-friendly interface, you can batch backup large numbers of VMs managed by vCenter Server, or multiple VMs on a standalone ESXi host.
Auto Backup Scheduling: Schedule multiple VM backups at once and run the backup task automatically without having to stop VMs.
Centralized VM Backup: Create and manage Hyper-V VM backups from the central console without installing Agent on each VM.
Flexible Backup Strategy: Offer various backup methods to flexibly tracking data and store VM backups to different locations.

AOMEI Cyber Backup supports VMware ESXi 6.0 and later versions. Next, I will show you how to batch backup vSphere VMs managed by vCenter Server with AOMEI Cyber Backup in 3 simple steps. You can click the following button to download the software.

3 easy steps to perform VMware vSphere backup

1. Bind Devices: Access to AOMEI Cyber Backup web client, navigate to Source Device >> VMware >> + Add VMware vCenter or Standalone ESXi host. And then click … >> Bind Device.

2. Create Backup Task: Navigate to Backup Task >> + Create New Task, and then select VMware ESXi Backup as the Device Type.

• Task Name: you can change the task name or use the default name with an ordinal.
• Device: batch select large numbers of VMs managed by vCenter Server for centralized backup.
• Target: select a local folder or network location (such as backup to NAS) to store the VM backups.
• Schedule: select backup method as full / incremental backup, then specify the time according to daily / weekly / monthly to automatically run the Hyper-V backup task.
• Backup Cleanup: Specify retention policy to delete unwanted VM backups automatically, thus saving storage space and cost.
• Start Backup: click Start Backup and select Add the schedule and start backup now, or Add the schedule only.

3. Restore: In addition to reliable vSphere ESXi backup, you can restore entire VM from any selected backup history. It’s convenient to recover a VM by hitting Restore to original/new location when the VMware VM fails.

• If you select Restore to new location, AOMEI Cyber Backup will easily make a clone of a virtual machine in the same or another datastore/host without reinstalling or configuring a new VM.

Summary

vSphere Update Manager is VMware's upgrade and patching tool, and you can also use them to upgrade ESXi versions. This article covers the process of upgrading VMware ESXi 6.5 to version 6.7. Do not forget to make a vSphere backup before upgrading.