Proactive Upgrade Case for Aria Operations for Networks

Products

VCF Operations for Networks

Issue/Introduction

NOTE: The Proactive Upgrade process for VMware Aria Operations for Networks is limited to Advanced Support customers with a Support Account Manager (SAM) and/or Dedicated Technical Support Engineer (DTSE).

Prerequisites to be followed before opening a Proactive Upgrade Case for VMware Aria Operations for Networks:

Cases must be opened 10 business days in advance of the upgrade window.
Cases should be opened as Severity 4.
Read the target version of the release notes and be aware of known issues.
Confirm the target Aria Operations for Networks version is compatible with other products in the environment. Also, confirm the Aria Operations for Networks upgrade path is supported. Refer to the Upgrade Path page of the Interoperability Matrix.
Validate Aria Operations for Network backups are being taken. Follow this article for Best practices to shutdown Aria Operations for Networks Clustered deployments
If a bespoke upgrade runbook is being followed, ensure it is aligned with the official Upgrade documentation.
Broadcom advises to upgrade to the latest available or n-1 version(s).
For issues fixed and known issues, see the Release Notes for more information for those versions.

VMware by Broadcom Support will:

Ensure pre-check issues are resolved.
Validate the target version and advise if a newer one is available.
Review provided logs for known issues that may impact the upgrade.
If a proactive Case is not raised with sufficient notice of 10 days, it will not be possible to offer log review and pre-check resolution within the planned time-frame.

Note: After support engineer has reviewed the template, further information might be requested from the deployment (screenshots, command outputs, support bundles, etc.)

Please complete the following template when opening the Case:

Upgrade Date & Time:
Aria Operations for Networks current running version:
Aria Operations for Networks upgrade to version:
VCF version (if applicable):
Aria Suite Lifecycle Manager (vRSLCM) environment (if applicable):
On Aria Operations for Networks GUI, navigate to Settings > Infrastructure and support > Infrastructure and updates page. From this page, take 1-2 screenshots covering the entire page. If you see any problems, click on them and capture additional screenshots showing all the problems.

Note: After support engineer has reviewed the template, further information might be requested from the deployment (screenshots, command outputs, support bundles, etc.)

Upgrade Recommendations:

Schedule a maintenance window for the entire upgrade so that VMs can be powered off to make backups.
Make sure there are good backups just prior to the upgrade, a good backup is one that restores have been tested and everything boots as expected.
Powered off snapshots can provide a quick rollback point and are also required before starting the upgrade.
Prepare a contingency plan to allow the upgrade maintenance window to be extended should a failure occur.
Have full cold backups of the nodes in case a roll back is necessary if the upgrade is unable to be completed before the maintenance window.
If 2 or more upgrade should be performed in line, take the latest snapshots after last upgrade completed.
If an upgrade failure occurs, please request an uplift in case severity.

Environment

Aria Operations for Networks 6.12.0
Aria Operations for Networks 6.12.1
Aria Operations for Networks 6.13.0
Aria Operations for Networks 6.14.0
Aria Operations for Networks 6.14.1
VMware Cloud Foundation Network Operations 9.0

Resolution

Open an Upgrade Awareness Case via Broadcom Support portal.

The purpose of a proactive upgrade case is to prepare in advance for the upgrade.

This is not an exhaustive health check of the environment, if this is required please engage VMware by Broadcom Professional Services. Broadcom Support

Broadcom Support will not be able to provide dedicated support to be on standby during the maintenance window.

If you experience issues during your scheduled change, please reach out on the maintenance case created by your SAM, request an uplift in severity, and the next available technical support engineer will contact you.

Additional Information

Aria Proactive Upgrade Case Guides:

Aria Suite Lifecycle
Aria Automation
Aria Operations
Aria Operations for Logs
Aria Operations for Networks

Listed below are external KB articles created for the proactive upgrade process by product: