In this post i will go over upgrading my 8.x vRLI appliance to 8.6.2 using vRSLCM (vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager). As a pre requirement we do need to have vRSLCM (vRealize Lifecycle Manager) upgraded to 8.6.2 or 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)

Settings screen shows options like System Details, Logs, System Patches, etc.

Click on Add Binaries under Product Binaries

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

Select My VMware and click on Discover

Adding product binary with My VMware selected, click Discover.

We can see a list of binaries that have been discovered. Make sure we select the upgrade package not the install package. We can select what we need and click on Add

Upgrading vRLI to 8.6.2 via vRSLCM: Select upgrade package, click Add.

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 request submission for vRSLCM binary mapping.

Click on the in Progress button to view the details

Requests page showing a vRLI 8.8.0 upgrade in progress.

We now have to wait for the download to complete

Request details show download progress in Stage 1, 591ms.

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

UI shows Environments tab with Corp Local, Products, and Health info.

Click on Upgrade

The image shows the vRealize Log Insight upgrade page with version 8.6.0, 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 shows sync recommendation; click Proceed to continue.

Select product Version 8.8 and click Next. We can also review the compatibility matrix to make sure the environment is compatible.

Upgrade vRealize Log Insight to version 8.8.0; select repository URL, then click Next.

A new 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 VA.

Run the Precheck to make sure there are no errors or issues.

Precheck button for data validation; click to run and fix errors.

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

The precheck step confirms all validations passed for upgrading vRealize Log Insight.

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

Progress screen showing upgrade stages: Stage 1 - Shutdown Guest OS, Stage 2 - Creating Node Snapshot, Stage 3 - Power On VM.

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 vRLI version.