Proactive Upgrade Case for vSphere vSAN

Products

• VMware vSAN
• VMware vSAN 6.x
• VMware vSAN 7.x
• VMware vSAN 8.x

Issue/Introduction

Prerequisites for opening a Proactive vSphere vSAN Upgrade Case:

• Cases must be opened 10 business days in advance of the upgrade window.
• Cases should be opened as Severity 4.
• 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 the vSphere vSAN log bundle and upload to the new case.
• Read the target version Release Notes and be aware of Known Issues.
• Reference the Interop Matrix to confirm the target vSphere vSAN version is compatible with other integrations in the environment and plan to upgrade those if necessary. Also confirm the vSphere ESXi upgrade path is supported.
• If this is a VCF environment, open a proactive Case with VCF Support.
• Validate there are good backups.
• Walk through Verify the health of vSAN.
• Be familiar with VMware vSAN Upgrade Best Practices

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. 

Please complete the following template when opening the Case: 

• Upgrade Date & Time:
• vSphere vSAN from version:
• vSphere vSAN to version:
• Server Make & Model
• Number of HBAs
• Make & Model of HBAs
• Firmware of HBA
• Current Driver version of HBA
• Drive Make and Model
• Drive firmware
• Current remaining space utilization percentage?
• Please copy and paste any triggered alarms/alerts in vSAN Health Check
• Current On-Disk format version?
• Features enabled?
• Deduplication
• Compression
• Encryption
• Stretch Cluster
• vSAN File Services
• Storage Architecture being used?
• OSA - Original Storage Architecture
• ESA - Express Storage Architecture
• Both
• Upgrade Prechecks Passed?:  
• 2 or more upgrade paths required?
• Please comment on any other environmental changes expected (provide runbook)

Upgrade Recommendations:

• It is recommended to retain locally the vSphere vSAN logs collected when opening the proactive Case until the upgrade has completed successfully.
• Prepare a contingency plan to allow the upgrade maintenance window to be extended should a failure occur.
• 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.
• 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 vSphere vSAN upgrade.

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