Quickest and easiest steps to take for upgrading / migrating VCSA-HA to the latest version?

[AlbertWT]

Hi All,

I need the quickest and the easiest way to patch Center appliance (VCSA) that is configured with High Availability (HA).

Since there are three VM nodes (Active, Passive and Witness).

1. Create a VM snapshot on the Active VCSA-HA node and note down the existing ESXi server hosting it.
2. Connect to the Active VCSA via Putty, then issue destroy-vcha -F command to destroy/dissolve the VCHA.
3. Delete both Passive & Witness VCSA nodes.
4. Follow your steps defined in https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/6.7/com.vmware.vcenter.upgrade.doc/GUID-C27CD7DF-AB52-4A77...
5. Once verified up and running, configure VCHA using: https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/6.7/com.vmware.vsphere.avail.doc/GUID-5F7DAFB2-60BD-4C50-A...
6. verify 3x VCSA-HA are up and running.

However, I got confused in the steps #4 between https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/6.7/com.vmware.vsphere.avail.doc/GUID-10E2660C-B0AD-4C1C-A... or https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/6.7/com.vmware.vsphere.avail.doc/GUID-5F7DAFB2-60BD-4C50-A...

Any help and suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

[berndweyand]

if you have vcsa 6.7u3b and afterwards the procedure is:

- patch the witness via ssh

- patch the passive via ssh

- manually failover

- patch the current passive

but this takes a long time, so the fastest way is to destroy vcha, take a snapshot, patch the remaining vcsa and deploy vcha after this

VMware Knowledge Base

[AlbertWT]

Unfortunately no, I got the first edition of VCSA 6.7 and the other sites got VCSA 6.5.

[berndweyand]

ok with 6.7 prior to u3b you will run into problems if you patch each node  - so destroy vcha and patch the remaining node.

with 6.5 HA i have no experience

[AlbertWT]

bewe​, thank you for the suggestion.

May I know if the steps in destroying or removing the HA pairs is correct?

and what about the steps to connect it again in pair?

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/6.7/com.vmware.vsphere.avail.doc/GUID-10E2660C-B0AD-4C1C-A...https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/6.7/com.vmware.vsphere.avail.doc/GUID-5F7DAFB2-60BD-4C50-A...

[berndweyand · Accepted solution]

the link points to a procedure when you have to repair vcha.

for patching you should only choose "remove vcenter ha" in the client or issue "destroy-vcha" via ssh. after patching go trough the wizard and setup vcha like you did the first time

[AlbertWT]

OK, do you have the link for creating the VC-HA for v6.7?