Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
have another specii c patch installed. This additional patch is noncritical and therefore
doesn't get included in the critical patch dynamic baseline. How do you work around this
problem?
Solution
Create a baseline group that combines the critical patch dynamic baseline
with a i xed baseline that contains the additional patch you want installed on all ESX/
ESXi hosts. Attach the baseline group to all your ESX/ESXi hosts. When you perform re-
mediation, VUM will ensure that all the critical patches in the dynamic baseline plus the
additional patch in the i xed baseline are applied to the hosts.
Use VUM to upgrade VM hardware or VMware Tools.
VUM can detect VMs with out-
dated VM hardware versions and guest OSes that have outdated versions of VMware Tools
installed. VUM comes with predei ned baselines that enable this functionality. In addition,
VUM has the ability to upgrade VM hardware versions and upgrade VMware Tools inside
guest OSes to ensure that everything is kept up-to-date. This functionality is especially help-
ful after upgrading your ESX/ESXi hosts to version 5.5 from a previous version.
Master It
You've just i nished upgrading your virtual infrastructure to VMware
vSphere. What two additional tasks should you complete?
Solution
Upgrade VMware Tools in the guest OSes and then the virtual machine hard-
ware to version 10.
Apply patches to ESX/ESXi hosts.
Like other complex software products, VMware ESX
and VMware ESXi need software patches applied from time to time. These patches might be
bug i xes or security i xes. To keep your ESX/ESXi hosts up-to-date with the latest patches,
VUM can apply patches to your hosts on a schedule of your choosing. In addition, to reduce
downtime during the patching process or perhaps to simplify the deployment of patches to
remote ofi ces, VUM can stage patches to ESX/ESXi hosts before the patches are applied.
Master It
How can you avoid VM downtime when applying patches (for example, re-
mediating) to your ESX/ESXi hosts?
Solution
VUM automatically leverages advanced VMware vSphere features like
Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS). If you make sure that your ESX/ESXi hosts are in
a fully automated DRS cluster, then VUM will leverage vMotion and DRS to move VMs to
other ESX/ESXi hosts, avoiding downtime to patch the hosts.
Upgrade hosts and coordinate large-scale datacenter upgrades.
Upgrading hosts manu-
ally, each with dozens of VMs on them, is burdensome and doesn't scale well once you have
more than a handful to deal with. Short outage windows, host reboots, and VM downtime
mean that coordinating upgrades can involve complex planning and careful execution.
Master It
Which VUM functionality can simplify the process of upgrading vSphere
across a large number of hosts and their VMs?
Solution
VUM can take care of these interactions in an automated fashion with what
is known as an orchestrated upgrade. An orchestrated upgrade combines several base-
line groups that include updates for the hosts, then subsequent updates for the VMs'
hardware and VMware Tools. Virtual appliance upgrade baselines can also be included.
When combined with fully automated DRS clusters and sufi cient redundant capacity,
potentially an entire vCenter's host inventory can be upgraded in one orchestrated task.
Utilize alternative approaches to VUM updates when required.
VUM presents the sim-
plest and most efi cient method to upgrade your vSphere hosts. However, sometimes VUM
