Aria Operations for Network 6.x Guide and best practices on upgrading Aria Operations for Network

Products

• VMware Aria Operations for Networks

Issue/Introduction

The purpose of this article is to provide information that will assist with the upgrade of Aria Operations for Networks. It includes general information relating to the upgrade process, and supplemental information based on common issues and the latest support trends.

Environment

VMware vRealize Network Insight 6.x
VMware vRealize Network Insight 6.5.1
VMware vRealize Network Insight 6.8.0
VMware vRealize Network Insight 6.7.0
VMware vRealize Network Insight 6.4.0
VMware vRealize Network Insight 6.2.x
VMware vRealize Network Insight 6.9.0
VMware vRealize Network Insight 6.3.x
VMware vRealize Network Insight 6.5.0
VMware vRealize Network Insight 6.6.0

VMware vRealize Network Insight 6.7.0

VMware vRealize Network Insight 6.8.0

Aria Operations for Networks 6.9.0

Aria Operations for Networks 6.10.0

Aria Operations for Networks 6.11.0

Aria Operations for Networks 6.12.0

Aria Operations for Networks 6.13.0

Aria Operations for Networks 6.14.0

Aria Operations for Networks

Cause

This article is meant to assist you with the offline upgrade for Aria Operations for Networks

Resolution

Prerequisites

Before upgrading Aria Operations for Networks, make sure that snapshots have been taken on both Aria Operations for Networks Platform and Collector VMs to revert back the deployment to a working stable state.
Ensure Aria Operations for Networks VMs are powered off from vCenter using Power Option>Shut Down Guest OS and then take snapshots.

Post upgrade is Successful ensure to delete the snapshots.

As an extra insurance, it is recommended to take full backups of your Aria Operations for Networks deployment. See Best practices to backup a vRealize Network Insight Cluster for more information.

Upgrade paths

Standard path
6.2.0 > 6.3.0>6.4.0>6.5.1>6.6.0>6.7.0>6.8.0>6.9.0>6.10.0>6.11.0>6.12.0>6.13.0>6.14.0

Jumps possible

6.2.0 > 6.4.0
6.3.0>6.5.1
6.4.0>6.6.0
6.6.0>6.8.0
6.7.0>6.9.0

6.8.0>6.10.0

6.9.0>6.11.0

6.10.0>6.12.0

6.11.0>6.13.0

6.12.0>6.14.0


Health checks to ensure a smooth upgrade
 

• From vRealize Network Insight 3.8, we recommend to have 100% reservation. Please make sure reservation is set to 100% before the upgrade.
• Check the disk I/O speed (by doing a DD command)and make sure there is no latency beyond 20ms. Both steps will reduce overall time for upgrade
• Check the MD5SUM of the downloaded upgrade bundle and match with Customer Connect site.
• Increase the UI timeout to more than 1 hour. This will ensure seamless UI upgrade
  • Settings > System Configuration > User Session Timeout > Duration 24h.
• If you are upgrading from vRealize Network Insight 3.7, you must increase the timeout values.

 

Upgrade methods : 

A.  Online upgrade : As of Aria Operations for networks 6.14.0 this feature has been deprecated and is no longer available.

B. Offline Upgrade

You must upgrade Platform VMs before Proxy VMs.

In case of Cluster Upgrade, platform1 must be upgraded first, then the other platforms will upgrade automatically. To confirm platform1 IP address, run this command in CLI: (cli)ping platform1

1. Download the upgrade bundle file VMWare-vRealize-Network-Insight-X.x.0.##########.upgrade.bundle.
2. Copy the upgrade bundle VMWare-vRealize-Network-Insight-X.x.0.##########.upgrade.bundle to vRealize Network Insight Platform and Proxy VMs.
   
   To copy the file to Aria Operations for Networks VM, use any one of these options:
   
   Option 0 (The quickest way to upgrade) :
   
   
   1. Go to Settings > Install and Support > Software Version > Click on "Click here" next to "Want to update using an update package" to upload the bundle to the appliances.
   2. Click on "Browse" and on "Upload" to start the transfer.
   3. Once the upload has been completed, when you are ready, click on "Install Now" to perform the upgrade.
      
      

Option 1:

• • To copy the file from Linux VM to Aria Operations for Networks VM, run this command:
    
    scp VMWare-vRealize-Network-Insight-X.#.0.##########.upgrade.bundle consoleuser@<IP_Address_vRNI_VM>:~/

  • To copy file from Windows VM to Aria Operations for Networks VM, run this command:
    
    Use pscp utility from https://the.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/latest/w64/pscp.exe
    
    pscp -scp <SOURCE_PATH>\VMWare-vRealize-Network-Insight-X.#.0.##########.upgrade.bundle consoleuser@<IP_Address_vRNI_VM>:~/

Option 2:

Log in to Aria Operations for Networks Platform CLI using consoleuser and run this command:

(cli) package-installer copy --host 192.168.21.22 --user johndoe --path /path/to/VMWare-vRealize-Network-Insight-X.#.0.##########.upgrade.bundle

Note: This command uses SCP to download the bundle from the host where the patch is downloaded, thus SCP server is required to be running on the host.
For more information, see Aria Operations for Networks Command-Line Interface Reference Guide.

3. Upgrade the appliance using package-installer upgrade command. 
   
   (cli) package-installer upgrade --name VMWare-vRealize-Network-Insight-4.x.0.##########.upgrade.bundle
   
   Note: Upgrade would complete within 30 minutes after this step. 
4. Verify the upgraded version using the show-version command.
   
   (cli) show-version
   
   Note: After a successful upgrade, it is not required to reboot the virtual machine.

 

Things to know 

VRNI 3.X: changing the brick size from medium to large size 

Additional Information

For any clarifications and issue troubleshooting, contact Broadcom Support.