What is the difference between the host update utiliy, update manager plug-in and the update manager software?

[ujjain]

Updating vSphere via VMA, Powercli and ESXi console is possible as well. Updating ESXi 4.0 to ESXi 4.1 took me a few hours to figure out and required quite some reading. In the end all I had to do is upload the zip-file to the datastore and run a upgrade command from the ESXi-console.

• Is there a relation between the Host Update Utility and Update Manager?

• Does the Update Manager plug-in even need the Update Manager server to be installed with SQL, etc?

• How come the Update recognizes 61 critical and 109 non-critical patches, while the Host update utiliy only recognized 2 patches available and now says "Host is up-to-date".

[PaulusG]

Hello ujjain,

Some answers:

Q1: No, these are seperate products

VMware has a lot of tools for upgrading and updating ESX hosts and VMs

With VMware Update Manager you can upgrade/update ESX hosts an apply OS and application patches tou your VMs

Q2: Yes, read this one: http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsp_vum_40u1_admin_guide.pdf

Q3: VUM also shows patches that are not applicable for the ESX host

Hope this helps

Paul Grevink

Twitter: @PaulGrevink

If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".

[AndreTheGiant]

VUM is part of vCenter... so is not free... you have to pay for vCenter.

But is the best solution to path and upgrade ESX and ESXi hosts.

HUU seems that is not used for vSphere 4.1.

VUM can be installed with a SQL Express... but it require vCenter... and VUM plugin require VUM itself...

About the last question, maybe your hosts are 4.1?

Andre

[Saju_C]

>>

How come the Update recognizes 61 critical and 109 non-critical patches, while the Host update utiliy only recognized 2 patches available and now says "Host is up-to-date".

>>

update manager can be used to patch ESX 3.5, 4.0 and and 4.1 products ( includes both ESX and ESXi). Host update utility is used to patch only ESXi 4.0.

[darslan]

-error-

[ujjain]

I understand the different roles now. Thanks.

• Having a single ESXi host. The use of vCenter Update Manager seems very limited?

• Lots of critical patches require a reboot, does that mean I have to reboot 10 times until my ESXi server is up2date?

• Another requirement of running Update Manager is it requires the server to be in maintenance mode for most patching. This means I would have to shut down the VM that runs 'Update Manager', as it's hosted on the same ESXi machine.

I can install Update Manager on my workstation at home, but will this make a successful full-patching of my server possible? I have only 1 server that I wish to fully patch. It now runs 4.1 as the update via vSphere CLI was successful.

Normal purpose must be to run Update Manager on the vCenter server, that would be installed on a physical machine without virtualization.

[Saju_C]

Having a single ESXi host. The use of vCenter Update Manager seems very limited? - True. update manager is generally used for multiple ESX implementations. SIngle ESXi host can be updated using vihostupdate ( vsphere CLI)

Lots of critical patches require a reboot, does that mean I have to reboot 10 times until my ESXi server is up2date? -- You can apply all patches an then do a single reboot or you can apply each patch and then reboot after each patch. Update manager can easily handle applying all patches together and a single reboot

Another requirement of running Update Manager is it requires the server to be in maintenance mode for most patching. This means I would have to shut down the VM that runs 'Update Manager', as it's hosted on the same ESXi machine - You should not use update manager VM on the same ESX which is getting patched. This is totally wrong configuration