Important information before upgrading to vSphere 6.7

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

This article provides important documentation and upgrade information that must be reviewed before upgrading to vSphere 6.7.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7
VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.7.x
VMware vCenter Server 6.7.x

Resolution

Important: vSphere 6.5 Update 2d and higher are not supported to upgrade to vSphere 6.7 Update 1.
                    vSphere 6.5 Update 2d and higher are supported to upgrade to vSphere 6.7 Update 2. For more information, see VMware Product Interoperability Matrices.

Known Issues

• VMware Update Manager displays the error "Server certificate assertion not verified and thumbprint not matched" in the HTML5 Client (55092)
• vSphere Web Client hangs after entering credentials after upgrade to vCenter Server 6.7 (54751)
• vCenter Server 6.7 upgrade fails with the error: "Failed to check the status of VMware Directory Service" (54724)
• Deploying an OVF fails with the error: The virtual machine has a required vService dependency vCenter Extension Installation which is not bound to a provider(55027)

Compatibility considerations

TLS protocols

• For TLS 1.2 support information in vSphere 6.7, see the Support for Transport Security Layer 1.2 section of the vCenter Server Upgrade guide.
• Using a TLSv1.0, TLSv1.1 and/or TLSv1.2 connection to your email server is not currently supported with the vCenter Server. vCenter Server uses plain text for email capabilities. For more information, see Support for SMTP authentication and STARTTLS in the vCenter Server and vCenter Server Appliance 5.x and 6.x

Before upgrading to vSphere 6.7 please ensure that all other software deployed is compatible based on VMware Product Interoperability Matrices .

Ensure 3rd Party backup solutions are compatible with vSphere 6.7 prior to upgrading.

Upgrade Considerations

Before upgrading your environment to vSphere 6.7, review these critical articles to ensure a successful upgrade

For vSphere

• See the vSphere 6.7 Release Notes for information on unsupported CPU's in vSphere 6.7.
• Devices deprecated and unsupported in ESXi 6.7
• VMware Performance Impact for CVE-2017-5753, CVE-2017-5715, CVE-2017-5754 (aka Spectre and Meltdown)
• Windows 7 and 2008 virtual machines lose network connectivity on VMware Tools 10.2.0
• It is not possible to upgrade directly from vSphere 5.5 to vSphere 6.7.

Upgrades to vSphere 6.7 are only possible from vSphere 6.0 or vSphere 6.5. If you are currently running vSphere 5.5, you must first upgrade to either vSphere 6.0 or vSphere 6.5 before upgrading to vSphere 6.7.

For vCenter Server

• Update sequence for vSphere 6.7 and its compatible VMware products
• vCenter Server upgrade fails if it contains Host Profiles lower than version 6.0.0
• vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller Deployment Types
• Repoint vCenter Server to External Platform Services Controller in a Different Domain
• Best practices for upgrading to vCenter Server 6.7
• Deploying vCenter Server Appliance 6.7 fails with the message "The installation of vCenter Server failed due to an internal error."

For Distributed Virtual Switches

• FAQ: Discontinuation of third party vSwitch program
• "Source vCenter Server has instance(s) of non-VMware Distributed Virtual Switch" error upgrading to vCenter Server 6.7

For Horizon

Horizon 7.4 is not compatible with the Instant Clone API used in vSphere 6.7.  Instant Clone support for vSphere 6.7 will be available in an upcoming Horizon release.

For NSX for vSphere

When upgrading to vSphere 6.7, you must first install or upgrade to NSX for vSphere 6.4.1 or later. For more information, see the Upgrading vSphere in an NSX Environment section of the NSX Upgrade Guide and Knowledge Base article Update sequence for vSphere 6.7 and its compatible VMware products (53710).

Additional Information

VMware Skyline Health Diagnostics for vSphere - FAQ