I needed to upgrade Cloud Director to 10.2.1 in my home lab. In this blog post, I will show you how to perform a Cloud Director upgrade. My Cloud Director instance only contains a single Cloud Director cell, but I will explain the upgrade process for a Cloud Director with multiple cells/appliances. So that you can use it for a Cloud Director HA setup as well.

VMware docs: Upgrading and Migrating the VMware Cloud Director Appliance

Prerequisites

  • Cloud Director 10.2.1 upgrade bundle - link
  • Set failover method to manual (Only when using HA setup in Cloud Director)
  • Make a snapshot of the Cloud Director Cells.

Change the failover method to manual

I have already created a blog post on setting the failover method to automatic or manual. Please see my previous post.

Create snapshot of Cloud Director cells

  1. Power off the primary Cloud Director node by Actions --> Power --> Shutdown Guest OS.

Create snapshot

  1. Create a snapshot of the Cloud Director cell Actions --> Snapshot --> Take Snapshot.

vCenter Create Snapshot

  1. Click on Create to proceed with creating a snapshot.

Take Snapshot

  1. Power on the primary Cloud Director node Actions --> Power --> Power On.

  2. Verify the health of all nodes by checking the state at https://vCDCellIP:5480.

Note: Make a note of the primary node.

Check health state cloud director

Transfer the upgrade bundle to the primary node

In my case, I will use WinSCP to transfer the downloaded upgrade bundle to the primary node.

  1. Open WinSCP and make a connection to the primary node.

winscp vcd

  1. Create a new folder in the /tmp/ directory named local-update-package

winscp transfer files

  1. Transfer the VMware_Cloud_Director_10.2.1.5355-17444454_update.tar.gz to the new directory /tmp/local-update-package.

winscp cloud director upgrade

We now need to extract the VMware_Cloud_Director_10.2.1.5355-17444454_update.tar.gz file.

  1. Open a SSH session to the primary Cloud Director node and change the directory to /tmp/local-update-package.

Cloud director upgrade

  1. Extract the VMware_Cloud_Director_10.2.1.5355-17444454_update.tar.gz file.
 tar -zxf VMware_Cloud_Director_v.v.v.v-nnnnnnnn_update.tar.gz

upgrade package bundle

Upgrade Cloud Director Cells.

  1. Configure the newly created directory /tmp/local-update-package as the update repository.
vamicli	update --repo file:///tmp/local-update-package

Cloud Director upgrade repository

  1. Check for new updates from the configured update repository.
vamicli update --check

Cloud Director available updates

  1. Shutdown Cloud Director with the following command:
/opt/vmware/vcloud-director/bin/cell-management-tool -u <admin username> cell --shutdown

Cloud Director update

  1. Start the upgrade procedure on the primary node.
vamicli update --install latest

Cloud Director update

  1. Perform step 6 to step 14 on the remaining standby/application nodes.

Upgrade the Cloud Director DB

  1. Create a backup of the Cloud Director PostgreSQL Database from the primary node.
/opt/vmware/appliance/bin/create-db-backup

Cloud Director backup database

  1. Perform the upgrade of the Cloud Director database.
/opt/vmware/vcloud-director/bin/upgrade

Cloud Director upgrade database

  1. Reboot each Cloud Director appliance by SSH or GUI.
    SSH:
shutdown -r now

GUI: Actions --> Power --> Restart Guest OS

Cloud Director reboot appliance

Login to the provider portal to validate the version of the Cloud Director instance.