Settings page for vRNI showing various administration and server management options.

Upgrading vRNI (vRealize Network Insight) to 6.4.0 via vRSLCM

In this post I will go over upgrading my 6.x vRNI appliance to 6.4.0 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. Mapping the Upgrade Binary in vRSLCM 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) ...

October 27, 2021 · Cosmin Trif
Settings page with options for system administration and servers/accounts, including System Details, Logs, and NTP Servers.

Upgrading vIDM (VMware Identity Manager ) to 3.3.5 via vRSLCM

In this post I will go over upgrading my 3.3.3 vIDM appliance to 3.3.5 using vRSLCM (vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager). If you want to upgrade to LCM 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. Downloading the 3.3.5 Upgrade Binaries 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) ...

October 25, 2021 · Cosmin Trif
Settings page with options like System Details, Logs, System Patches, and Authentication Provider.

Upgrading vRLI (vRealize Log Insight) to 8.6 via vRSLCM

In this post I will go over upgrading my 8.x vRLI 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. Downloading the Upgrade Binary via Binary Mapping 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) ...

October 25, 2021 · Cosmin Trif

Downgrading the ESXi version to a different build

During one of the recent upgrades in my VCF environment I accidentally upgraded the ESXi 7.x build number to a later build that was not in the validated design which caused all kinds of issues and errors in my sddc manager. In order to address this I wanted to see I could actually downgrade the packages to a lower build number. It goes without saying that this procedure should not be done in a production environment and you should contact VMware customer support for an supported downgrade method. We will be working in the ESXi cli on this guide ...

October 25, 2021 · Cosmin Trif
VMware vRealize Operations Manager 8.6.0 download options with 'Standard,' 'Advanced,' and 'Enterprise' versions.

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 Downloading the .pak Files 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 ...

October 25, 2021 · Cosmin Trif
Settings page for vROPS upgrade via vRSLCM, showing options like System Details, Logs, and System Upgrade.

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. Adding the vROPS 8.6 Upgrade Binaries 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) ...

October 25, 2021 · Cosmin Trif
Settings page for vRA 8.6 upgrade, showing options like System Details, Logs, and Authentication Provider.

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. Downloading the Upgrade Binaries 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) ...

October 23, 2021 · Cosmin Trif
Update page for VMware Cloud Foundation showing available updates and download progress.

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 Downloading the Upgrade Bundles 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. ...

October 23, 2021 · Cosmin Trif
vRealize Operations Manager UI showing Quick Start, Optimize Performance, and Capacity options.

vROPS 8.6 UI Overview

During VMworld 2021 we announced vRealize Operations 8.6 which now provides a lot 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! The New Simplified Navigation 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: ...

October 21, 2021 · Cosmin Trif
Installation failed due to Exception in postInstallHook, 80% progress.

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 ...

October 19, 2021 · Cosmin Trif