In this post i will go over upgrading my 8.x SSC appliance to 8.9.1. As a pre requirement we do need to have vRSLCM (vRealize Lifecycle Manager) upgraded to 8.8.2. Instructions can be found here. The upgrade doesn’t include the required Product support pack. Instructions on how to get the latest support pack can be found 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)

Settings page with various options like System Details, Logs, and Authentication Provider.

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

Select My VMware and click Discover to add a product binary.

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

The image shows a step in upgrading SSC (SaltStack Config) to 8.9.1 using vRSLCM, with a list of binaries and upgrade options.

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

Binary Mapping in vRSLCM shows a successful request submission with options to add or delete unsupported binaries.

Click on the in Progress button to view the details

Requests page shows upgrade task completed.

We now have to wait for the download to complete

Request details show download in progress, stage 1, 468ms.

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

UI shows Corp Local environment with disabled health check.

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: Trigger inventory sync or proceed.

Select product Version 8.9.1 and click Next. We can also review the compatibility matrix to make sure the environment is compatible.

Upgrade vRA SaltStack Config wizard showing version selection for 8.9.1.

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

Wizard step shows taking a snapshot before upgrading SSC.

Run the Precheck to make sure there are no errors

Precheck step: Click RUN PRECHECK to validate data.

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.

Progress screen shows upgrade of vRealize Automation SaltStack Config in Stage 1.

The system will get rebooted and once its back up we will be on 8.9.1

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