Before we upgrade

It is very important to validate all necessary components before NSX is upgraded.i have already shared upgrade impact in my previous post , also below checklist will help you to prepare your environment to upgrade:

• Download NSX upgrade bundle and check MD5.
• if you are upgrading from 6.2.2 to 6.2.3/6.2.4. , there is known bug which affects EDGE upgrade when incorrect ciphers are configured. VMware KB NSX Edge is unmanageable after upgrading to NSX 6.2.3 explain steps needed to check it and/or change it before the upgrade.
• Understand the  Update sequence for vSphere 6.0 and its compatible VMware products.
• Backup of components:
  • Take a backup of NSX Manager (if you are not doing it regularly) before the upgrade.
  • Before upgrading download technical support logs.
  • Export of vSphere Distributed Switches configuration.
  • Create a backup of vCenter Server database.
  • Take a snapshot of vCenter Server and vCenter Server database.
  • Take a snapshot of NSX Manager (without quiescing VMware Tools, because it is not supported and it might crash your NSX Manager).

Let’s Start…

1. Login to NSX Manager and go to Upgrade section.
2. Click on Upgrade button, specify a location of upgrade bundle and click Continue.
3. 
4. It will take some time to upload it..
5. Choose if you want to enable SSH and participate in Customer Experience Improvement Program . Click Upgrade to proceed.
6. Upgrade takes a some time , so be patient.
7. GUI reports that upgrade has been done.

NSX Controllers Upgrade

1. Go back to vSphere Web Client and go to Networking&Security and go to Installation and Click on Upgrade Available button.
2. Confirm “YES”that we want to proceed with Controllers upgrade.
3. It will take some time to upgrade controllers. In my case, it was around 10 minutes per controller.
4. 

VMware ESXi Host NSX VIBs Upgrade

1. Navigate to Installation section and click Host Preparation.
2. Click on Upgrade Available in every cluster you are using NSX and confirm Upgrade by clicking Yes.
3. In vSphere Client uninstalls and install tasks will be visible , basically process uninstalls old vibs and install new vibs. and as you are aware un-installation a vib require a Reboot, so all your hosts , will get rebooted. if you have DRS enabled cluster , NSX will do all the magic automatically , it will put a Host in maintenance mode and reboot and once this completes , it will move to other host in the cluster. once all upgraded , you will see like this…

NSX Edge Services Gateway and Distributed Logical Router Upgrade.

1. Next step is to upgrade Edge Services Gateway and Distributed Logical Router.
2. Navigate to NSX Edges and Right click on a edge and Click on “Upgrade version”
3. 
4. Please remember that there might be service interruption depending on a configuration used in environment.
5. In vSphere Web Client in current tasks, it will be visible, that two temporary new Edge Services Gateways deployment will be in progress and after some time all the edges will be upgraded to version 6.2.4.
6. Same procedure will be used to perform an upgrade of other edges.

Post-Upgrade Checklist

• Check if NSX Manager is working.
• Check if NSX Manager backup is working.
• Check if NSX VIBs are installed on ESXi host.
• Resynchronize the host message bus.
• Remove snapshot from NSX Manager.
• Remove snapshot from vCenter Server.
• Remove snapshot from vCenter Server database.

Happy learning 🙂