Part 3 - Patching vCenter7 with vCHA enabled

In the previous blog we had enabled vCenter HA and tested failover process. In this write up, we will patch a live version of vCenter vCHA configuration.

You cannot patch a vCenter Server appliance in a vCenter HA cluster in vCenter 7.0 following the official patching guide.

According to VMware, you can patch your vCenter HA setup by downloading the VCSA patch ISO and following their Official vCHA Patching Guide but this process doesn’t work.

Resolution: You must remove the vCenter HA configuration, apply patches to vCenter Server appliance and then reconfigure your vCenter HA deployment.

Prerequisites for Patching vCHA enabled vCenter 7.0

At a high level, the process to patch a vCHA enabled vCenter is that we remove the vCenter Server HA cluster configuration, patch the single vCenter Server Appliance and then redo the vCHA configuration.

Single Sign-On administrator password
vCHA cluster mode must be enabled and healthy.
Ensure you backup your vCenter appliance.
Snapshot your vCenter.
Export of your vDS switch config
Make a note of the esx host running the vCenter.
Verify if the vCPU/vMEM is enough for the vCenter, if not increase it.
Network latency between vCHA and vCenter management should be under 10 ms.
Disk latency between vCHA and vCenter management should be under 10 ms.

Patching

It’s always a good idea to do your research before upgrading or patching your vCenter . Along with reading the release notes, verifying the VMware compatibility Matrix of esxi, vDS switches, vCenter, and NSX-T/V are essential just to rule out if the current topology has some existing incompatibility issues.

Here are the relevant web links

The write up below covers the process to patch a vCenter deployed as VCHA Basic Deployment in vCenter 7.0.X.

Download latest vCenter patch

To download the patch from our vCenter, browse to the VMware Patch Download Center and search for our version of vCenter

You can find the current version of vCenter by checking the build number straight from the UI or via the appliance mode as shown below

Login to the vCenter appliance mode as https://sfo-m01-vc02.ash.local:5480/#/ui/summary to show the version of vCenter if you prefer.

Next step we need to go VMware Patch Download Center to download our latest vCenter patch

Upload the ISO file to a location on your datastore

Disable vCenter HA

In the past you would have put the HA cluster into maintenance mode but in vCenter 7.0 we can just disable the HA as per the below process.

Verify if the current state of vCenter HA is enabled and healthy

The vCenter HA status is now reported as Enabled. Click on Remove vCenter HA button.

Tick the option to delete the Passive and Witness Node VM

This will now just delete the Passive and Witness node and we will then be left with one vCenter

Our vCenter vCHA configuration no longer exists and we re now left with one vCenter to patch

Patching the vCenter node

Select our active vCenter and mount the patch .ISO file

Select the patch .ISO file from the correct datastore then click OK

Click OK to save the configuration and then ssh to our vCenter appliance as root

ssh root@vCSA_node_IP_address

Use the software-packages utility to stage the patch on the Active node. From the appliance shell run the command:To stage the ISO:

software-packages stage --iso

To see the staged content:
software-packages list --staged

Use the software-packages utility to install the patch on the Active node. From the appliance shell run the command:

software-packages install –iso –acceptEulas

The vCenter update will require around 30 mins and during this time vCenter UI will not be available

Finally, reboot the appliance

shutdown reboot -r

Once your vCenter is upgraded, you can then proceed to deploy your VCHA cluster again.

Summary

In this exercise, we have shown you how to patch the vCenter enabled with vCHA .The official Official vCHA Patching Guide still has the vCHA 6.X update procedure documented and it does not work anymore.

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