Proactive Upgrade Case for VMware Aria Automation

Products

VCF Operations/Automation (formerly VMware Aria Suite)

Issue/Introduction

NOTE: The Proactive Upgrade process for VMware Aria Automation 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 Automation:

Cases must be opened 10 business days in advance of the upgrade window.
Cases should be opened as Severity 4.
VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle must be at the latest available version (8.18.x) and must have the latest Product Support Pack (PSPACK) installed.
Have a development environment upgraded before production to test that any customization still functions as expected on the latest version.
Upgrade pre-checks must be run in advance and report any issues that cannot be resolved.
Collect an Aria Automation log bundle and upload it to the new case.
Collect an Aria Automation health check report and upload it to the new case.
Read the target version Release Notes and be aware of Known Issues.
Reference the Interop Matrix to confirm the target Aria Automation version is compatible with other integrations in the environment and plan to upgrade those if necessary.
Also confirm the Aria Automation upgrade path is supported.
If this is a VCF environment, open a proactive Case with VCF Support.
Validate there are good backups that can successfully be restored of the Aria Automation cluster VMs.
Walk through Validating VMware Aria Automation and Automation Orchestrator 8.x health.
Check the Inventory synchronization in VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle
Be familiar with Troubleshooting VMware Aria Automation 8.x upgrades.

Environments with a Standalone Aria Orchestrator instance:

Reference the Interop Matrix for compatibility.
Collect Aria Orchestrator logs and upload them to the new case.
Collect an Aria Orchestrator health check report and upload it to the new case.
The same version for the stand alone Aria Orchestrator as the Aria Automation cluster is required.
Test any customization in a development environment to ensure everything still works as expected prior to upgrading production.
Validate there are good backups that can successfully be restored of the Aria Orchestrator VMs.
Be familiar with the Standalone Upgrade Guide and the Aria Orchestrator Upgrade Troubleshooting Guide.

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 Automation from version:
Aria Automation to version:
VCF from version:
VCF to version:
If Standalone Orchestrator, from version:
If Standalone Orchestrator, to version:
Upgrade Prechecks Passed?:
2 or more upgrade paths required?

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.

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: