Temporarily allow vCenter VMware Update Manager (VUM) to enable the transition of heterogeneous hardware to vLCM image management

Products

VMware vCenter Server VMware Cloud Foundation

Issue/Introduction

To complete an upgrade to VCF 9, all clusters must transition from vLCM baseline management (formerly VUM) to vLCM image management. The ESX upgrade portion of the VMware Cloud Foundation 9.x process requires vLCM image-managed clusters as a prerequisite.

However, vLCM images for heterogeneous hardware-based clusters are only supported starting in ESX 9. This seemingly creates a circular dependency where the transition must occur after the ESX 9 upgrade, but the upgrade normally requires the transition first. To resolve this, a special process is required to temporarily allow the vCenter Update Manager (VUM) service to perform the upgrade to ESX 9 on these specific clusters.

Once vCenter Update Manager has been unrestricted, please upgrade the heterogeneous cluster to ESX 9 using vCenter Update Manager and then transition the cluster to vLCM images. See https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/vmware-cis/vcf/vcf-9-0-and-later/9-0/deployment/upgrading-cloud-foundation/upgrade-the-management-domain-to-vmware-cloud-foundation-5-2/vlcm-baseline-to-vlcm-image-cluster-transition-.html

Environment

SDDC Manager: 9.0 or later (required for VCF enabled environments.)
vCenter: 9.0 or later
NSX: 9.0 or later
ESXi: 8.0.3 or earlier

Cause

The system cannot upgrade to a vLCM Image-managed cluster without first upgrading to ESX 9, but vLCM image management on heterogeneous hardware clusters is not supported until the hosts are already running ESX 9.

Resolution

The vCenter Update Manager service can be temporarily unrestricted via a Broadcom-provided PowerShell script or vCenter APIs, provided that one or more heterogeneous-hardware clusters are detected in the inventory. vCenter Update Manager will remain unrestricted until the service is restarted or the vCenter appliance is rebooted.

Important Caveats:

This process is only supported for true heterogeneous clusters.
The VUM service becomes restricted again after a service restart or appliance reboot.
Following VUM-based ESX 9 upgrades, you should prioritize transitioning the clusters to vLCM images immediately.

Option 1: PowerShell (Preferred)

Requirements:

Client Software:
- - VCF PowerCLI 9.0+
    - Note: Before installing VCF.PowerCLI uninstall VMware.PowerCLI to avoid conflicts between the two modules.
  - PowerShell 7.2+
User Rights: SDDC Manager ADMIN user.
Network: HTTPS access to SDDC Manager and vCenter.

Steps:

Download the latest release of the Powershell script from the official VMware by Broadcom github repository: VUM Unrestrict Script
Unzip VumUnrestrict.zip
Run the script: .\VumUnrestrict.ps1
If you have a VCF deployment with SDDC Manager, enter "Y" to the prompt "Is this a VCF Deployment"? otherwise enter "N"
When prompted, enter the credentials for SDDC Manager or vCenter, depending on the mode.
Review the status returned by the script:

Status	Meaning	Action Required
N/A	vCenter version not supported	Upgrade to vCenter 9.0 or later
Unrestricted	Success - VUM Services Unrestricted	Ready to proceed to ESX 9.0 upgrade
Restricted	No heterogeneous clusters located	Transition clusters to vLCM images normally
Failed	vCenter Task failed or blocked	Open a support case

Option 2: API (Using Developer Center)

Requirements:

User Rights: vCenter Administrative rights.
Server: vCenter 9.0 or later.
Network: HTTPS access to vCenter.

Steps:

Log in to the vCenter UI as an administrator.
Navigate to Menu > Developer Center > API Explorer.
Select the esx API endpoint.
Expand settings/inventory.
Locate and expand: POST /api/esx/settings/inventory?action=update-vum-capability&vmw-task=true
Execute the call. You will receive a Task ID (e.g., "52b3cef6...:com.vmware.esx.settings.inventory"). Copy this ID.
Change the API endpoint dropdown to cis.
Expand tasks > /api/cis/tasks/{task}.
Enter your Task ID into the field and click Execute.
Verify the results: If vum_operations_enabled is true, VUM has been successfully unrestricted.

Additional Information

Support

For product issues, please open a standard Broadcom support case.

For bugs or enhancement requests with this script, please open a github issue.