In this post i will go over upgrading my 8.x vRA appliance to 8.7. As a pre requirement we do need to have vRSLCM (vRealize Lifecycle Manager) upgraded to 8.7. 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.

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 page with options for system administration and servers/accounts, including My VMware and Binary Mapping.

Click on Add Binaries under Product Binaries

Binary Mapping page with options to add or delete unsupported binaries.

Select My VMware and click on Discover

Add Product Binary wizard step. 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

The image shows the “Add Product Binary” step in a vRA upgrade wizard, listing vRealize Automation versions for selection.

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

Binary Mapping step shows successful request submission with options to add or delete unsupported binaries.

Click on the in Progress button to view the details

Upgrading vRA to 8.7 in progress. Click to view details.

We now have to wait for the download to complete

Progress bar shows “In Progress” with “Stage 1” and “504ms” for VMware download.

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

Dashboard, Create Environment, Datacenters, Environments, Requests, Settings. Corp Local environment with products icons and health info showing unavailable.

Click on Upgrade

UI shows vRealize Automation 8.1.0 with upgrade options and inventory sync notice.

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 inventory if environment changed. Click Proceed to continue.

Select product Version 8.7.0 and click Next. We can also review the compatibility matrix to make sure the environment is compatible.

Selecting version 8.6.0 for vRA upgrade, next step.

Anew feature that was added was the capability to automatically create a snapshot prior to the upgrade and remove it after the upgrade. On this screen we also have the ability to chose if we want to keep the snapshots post upgrade for validation testing for example. Click next

Upgrade wizard step: Snapshot. Option to take product snapshot and retain it.

Run the Precheck to make sure there are no errors

Precheck step for vRA upgrade; click RUN PRECHECK for data validation.

The next screen remind us of hardware requirements for vRA and vIDM which can be checked here for vRA and vIDM which can be checked here. As far as i can tell they haven’t changed since the 8.3 release. Check the I took care of the manual steps above and am ready to proceed check mark and click on Run Precheck

Manual validations for vRA 8.6.0 hardware requirements are listed, with a link to check them.

Once the check is complete we can review the checks that were performed and we can continue by clicking Next.

Precheck results show all validations passed; next step is to click Next.

Review the upgrade details and click on Next. We are taken to the progress screen where we can follow the progress.

Progress screen showing upgrade stages and status.

The system will get rebooted and once its back up we will be on 8.7

Since we are doing a major upgrade i strongly recommend to clean the cache before using the new vRA version.