In this post i will go over upgrading my 8.x SSC appliance to 8.11.1. As a pre requirement we do need to have vRSLCM (vRealize Lifecycle Manager) upgraded to 8.11.1. Instructions can be found here. The upgrade does not include the latest PSPACK that contains the 8.11.1 SaltStack Config release. Instructions to get the PSPACK can be found on my other blog post here.

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)

The image shows a settings menu with options like System Details, Logs, and Product Support Pack under System Administration, and NTP Servers, SNMP, and My VMware under Servers & Accounts.

Click on Add Binaries under Product Binaries

Binary Mapping page in vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager showing options to add and delete unsupported binaries.

Select My VMware and click on Discover

Add Product Binary: Select My VMware, then click Discover.

We can see a list of binaries that have been discovered. We can select what we need and click on Add

Adding vRealize Automation SaltStack Config 8.11.1 for upgrade.

This will create a request and start downloading the package. To view the progress we can click on the Click Here hyperlink

Binary Mapping page shows successful mapping request submission.

Click on the in Progress button to view the details

Requests page showing upgrade in progress for VRA 8.11.1.

We now have to wait for the download to complete

Request details show “In Progress” with “Stage 1” and “559ms” for VMware download.

After the download is complete we can go to Environments -> View Details on the environment that includes SSC

Corp Local environment shows disabled health check in vRSLCM.

Click on Upgrade

UI shows upgrade option for vRealize Automation SaltStack Config to 8.9.1.

An Inventory sync is recommended if the environment has changed since LCM performed the last sync. We trigger the sync from the UI or click on Proceed to continue

Upgrade wizard step: Proceed to Upgrade. Sync recommended if environment changed. Click Proceed to continue.

Select product Version 8.11.1 and click Next. We can also review the compatibility matrix to make sure the environment is compatible.

Upgrade wizard step shows selecting vRealize Automation SaltStack Config version 8.11.1.

We can automatically create and delete a snapshot part of the upgrade process

Upgrade wizard step showing snapshot option for vRA SaltStack Config.

Run the Precheck to make sure there are no errors

Click “RUN PRECHECK” to validate data for upgrading SSC.

Once the check is complete, click on Next. Review the upgrade details and click on Next. We are taken to the progress screen where we can follow the progress.

Upgrading SSC to 8.11.1 using vRSLCM: Progress screen showing Stage 1 upload in progress.

The system will get rebooted and once its back up we will be on 8.11

Here are a few additional blogs that might be useful post upgrade:

Error Code: LCMVSSC10018

SSC 8.8 sseapi_rpc_queue: could not connect to SSE server

SSC 8.8 urllib3 (1.25.11) or chardet (4.0.0) doesn’t match a supported version

Authentication failed: no Authorization header