One of the biggest advantages of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.1 is its flexibility and broad support for existing customer environments, meeting customers where they are at in their Private Cloud journey. From existing standalone vSphere deployments with VCF Operations to environments with different combinations of vSAN, NSX and Aria Automation, all the way to a full stack VCF deployment.
With this added flexibility in VCF 9.1, depending on the components and features deployed within an environment, customers may need to account for specific component upgrade sequences, additional operational workflows and resource requirements, which can make understanding the overall upgrade workflow a real challenge. Historically, customers would have to piece together information from product documentation, KB articles and interoperability matrices before they could confidently plan and perform an upgrade.
This is where I think we can provide an improved upgrade experience for our customers. Instead of having to understand all the different deployment permutations and specific order of operations, why not start with where the customer is currently at based on the products and features they already have deployed? Using that as input, we can then provide the applicable destination scenarios they can upgrade to and, most importantly, generate a custom tailored upgrade plan that is unique to their specific environment.
Today, I am excited to share the release of the VCF Upgrade Planning Tool which provides a custom tailored upgrade planning experience to help customers confidently navigate their VCF upgrade journey.
After specifying your current deployment which can either be a vSphere or VCF-based environment along with the specific versions you are running, users will then be presented with a set of applicable designations that they can then choose from.
Once the destination has been selected, the VCF Upgrade Planning Tool will provide a comprehensive upgrade plan that includes:
- Overall upgrade workflow that is also broken down into discreet upgrade phases to help with maintenance window planning
- Resource & Networking Requirements
- Key considerations and potential pitfalls to avoid
- Relevant references to VCF product documentation
While the VCF Upgrade Planning Tool can be used interactively, users can also export the entire upgrade workflow and/or specific upgrade phases to PDF for offline use.
I hope this tool will provide you with a better VCF upgrade experience and if you have any feedback, issues or areas for improvement, feel free to leave a comment or file Github Issues or even contribute back!
Thank you, we have plenty of 5.x to 9.x going on at the moment, this will really help! I’ll pass it to the entire PS team.
Could you add VCD to the product list?
Yup, that was something we plan to address but waiting on some additional documentation references to be ready. VCD to VCF Automation Migration is a key feature in 9.1
Great to hear and this will help with our migration from vSphere immensely. As always, I appreciate everything you do for the community.
Hi William, great overview for our customers, thanks. In addition, what about upgrades where ELM needs to be disconnected? Or adding workload domains to the paths?
It also lacks a clear statement/guidance regarding the Supervisor/VKS/IaaSCP component.
For example, we are looking for a way to converge/convert/import an existing vSphere 8 U3i cluster (8 hosts, 75% utilized) with vSphere Supervisor, NSX, and Cloud Director enabled into VCF 9.1 using a consolidated/combined design. However, these components are simply omitted from both the "Supported and Not Supported Configurations to Converge to VCF" and "Import an Existing vCenter to Create a Workload Domain" documentation.
Serhii - Thanks for the feedback, this is an area the team is looking to further improved both in documentation, interop matrix and upgrade planning tool. I've shared your raw feedback directly with the team and hopefully have an update to the tool that'll provide more guidance
Thank you for the quick reply and for passing this feedback along to the team! I really appreciate everything you do for the community. You're the best!
I'd be very grateful if you could provide a quick yes/no based on your experience: is it currently possible to converge, convert, or import an existing vSphere 8 U3i cluster (8 hosts, 75% utilized) with vSphere Supervisor, NSX, and Cloud Director enabled into VCF 9.1 using a consolidated design?
Thank you in advance!
Serhii - Yes, VCD is supported. This is the guidance we've been given by the product team to ensure a successful in-place migration experience (which is same info presented in the Upgrade Planning Tool)
In VCF Automation 9.1, you can use the Migration Tool to perform an in-place migration from VMware Cloud Director to VCF Automation. For more information, contact your Broadcom representative
Ref:https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/vmware-cis/vcf/vcf-9-0-and-later/9-1/provider-management.html#GUID-714947d5-a2c4-45f0-9c4d-1b6c447e74fe-en_id-275f2d1d-24c7-4717-af26-c5fa9b6b8ac6
Is it also possible to include the import scenario, with vSphere 8 co-existence as workload domain