In this post i will go over upgrading my 8.x vRA appliance to 8.8. As a pre requirement we do need to have vRSLCM (vRealize Lifecycle Manager) upgraded to 8.78 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)

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

Click on Add Binaries under Product Binaries

Binary Mapping page shows Product Binaries tab, Add Binaries, and Delete Unsupported Binaries buttons.

Select My VMware and click on Discover

Add Product Binary screen shows “My VMware” selected, with “Discover” button.

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 vRA upgrade wizard, displaying discovered binaries for vRA 8.8.0.

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

Binary mapping request submitted; check status by clicking link.

Click on the in Progress button to view the details

UI shows upgrade request details for vRA 8.8.0 type upgrade.

We now have to wait for the download to complete

Request details show “In Progress” for Stage 1, with download progress bar.

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. Environments list shows Corp Local with Products and Health info.

Click on Upgrade

The screenshot shows vRealize Automation 8.7.0 with upgrade and add components options.

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. Suggests syncing inventory before proceeding.

Select product Version 8.8.0 and click Next. We can also review the compatibility matrix to make sure the environment is compatible.

Upgrading vRA to 8.8.0, review compatibility matrix before clicking Next.

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 showing snapshot options for vRA 8.8.

Run the Precheck to make sure there are no errors

Precheck step for vRA upgrade, click RUN PRECHECK to validate data.

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 validation screen for vRA 8.8 upgrade, highlighting hardware checks and precheck options.

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

Precheck results for vRA 8.6.0 upgrade, showing passed validations. Click Next to proceed.

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

Progress screen for vRA upgrade showing stages and status.

The system will get rebooted and once its back up we will be on 8.8

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