I have been asked with this question some one help to find the right answer.

[rcsd5310]

1. You have a cluster of 8 ESXi hosts that require installation of a new security patch that will require a reboot of each host. Explain how you would reboot each host without impacting the VMs.

2. X node cluster with 10n no of vms, out of it 10% of vms has VM tools installed and and 40%  VM tools not installed and 50% are out of date, how do I make all 100% as VM tools Installed - Best way to do this ?

[schepp]

Hi and welcome to the communities,

1.

You would vMotion all VMs from one host to the other hosts and set the host in maintenance mode. Then you can patch and reboot it without impacting any VMs.

When the host is available again after reboot, exit maintenance mode and continue this with the next host until all hosts are patched.

2.

Depends on how the VMware tools where installed and what the guest VMs are.

For Windows VMs I would set the option to check for VMtool-upgrades on startup. So after each Microsoft patch day when the VMs reboot, their VMware tools will automaticly be upgraded too.

In Linux you can install the operation system specific packages from VMware and keep the Tools up to date with the normal internal patching routines.

Otherwise use PowerCLI or vCO to mass deploy VMware Tools / Upgrades.

[Abukar]

I would probably use update manager if I were you. It can take of v Motioning all your VMs. and apply the patches on each host randomly.

With VMware tools you can again use update manager to install the tools before you do host patches. If you want do manually or update manager is not available I will make that

VMware tools are updated first then patch each host by placing them in to mantainance mode assuming your vMotion is configured properly.

[rcsd5310]

Hi Tim,

Thank you for your help!

It will more helpful if you can explain me about PowerCLI or vCO to mass deploy VMware Tools / Upgrades too.

Thanks once again.

Regards,

Sankar Ravichandran

[schepp]

You can use PowerCLI or vCO to mount the VMware tools ISO for the initial install and also use it to run the needed commands inside the VM to run the installer.

There are many examples out there, just google it. For example:

Automation 101 – VMware Tools with Orchestrator

Manage VMware Tools with PowerCLI

[rcsd5310]

Thanks Abukar, if you have some time can you explain me with steps it could be helpful to understand.

[rcsd5310]

Doing a mass upgrade using Power CLI for VM tools does it affect a ESXi performance ?  If so, What will be best way to upgrade?

[Abukar]

All questions will be answered by this article. Thanks to David Davis

vSphere Update Manager (VUM) (Part 1) - Introduction