Managing Parallel Remediation for ESXi Hosts in vSphere Lifecycle Manager

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi
• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vCenter Server 8.0

Issue/Introduction

Attempting to remediate multiple ESXi hosts in the same cluster sequentially while a remediation task is already in progress, you encounter the following error: Remediation task failed: The operation is not supported on the selected inventory objects.

This occurs even if the Parallel Remediation setting is enabled in the vSphere Lifecycle Manager (vLCM) settings.

Environment

vCenter server 8.x

vSphere ESXi 8.x

Cause

This issue occurs because the parallel remediation feature in vSphere Lifecycle Manager is designed to remediate hosts that are already in maintenance mode before the remediation task is initiated at the cluster level. Attempting to start a new remediation task on a single host while another host is currently undergoing remediation is not supported, even with parallel remediation enabled.

Resolution

To successfully perform parallel remediation on multiple ESXi hosts, you must initiate the task from the cluster level with the target hosts already in maintenance mode.

1. Place Hosts in Maintenance Mode: Manually enter maintenance mode for all ESXi hosts you intend to remediate in parallel.
2. Navigate to Cluster: In the vSphere Client, select the Cluster containing the hosts.
3. Select Baselines: Navigate to the Updates tab, select Baselines, and tick the specific baseline(s) you wish to apply.
4. Initiate Remediation: Click the Remediate button.
5. Select Hosts: In the remediation wizard, ensure the specific hosts already in maintenance mode are selected from the list.
6. Execute: Click Remediate to begin patching multiple hosts simultaneously.

Notes:

vSphere Lifecycle Manager does not automatically remediate ESXi hosts that are not in maintenance mode when the parallel remediation checkbox is selected.

For automation via PowerCLI, refer to the update-entity documentation regarding the ClusterEnableParallelRemediation parameter.
Remediating ESXi Hosts by Using Baselines and Baseline Groups