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
A cartoon rabbit holding a carrot with "That's all, folks!" text.

Shutting down a vSAN Cluster

I have the need to completely shut down some of my vSAN clusters for various clusters and ive been having a hard time finding the proper procedure. As of 2/16/2021 VMware released guidance here Here are the steps I took to do it on my end. If you have the vCLS service enabled follow my other instructions here prior to starting the rest of this guide. Disable cluster member updates from vCenter on each ESXi host in the cluster by running ...

March 27, 2021 · Cosmin Trif