Upgrading VMware Horizon components and the order in which that is done has been significantly improved in the last few years, but at the same time the related VDI components have changed leaving an administrator like me going back to the documentation asking…
“how do I go about my upgrade again?”
Thankfully VMware has had their View Upgrades guide published for some time and it’s been updated for VMware Horizon 7.4. This is the go-to document if you’re moving from 5 or 6 with latest patch releases. (It says as much right at the beginning.)
The online documentation: https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Horizon-7/7.4/horizon-upgrades/GUID-E3607442-8936-49A8-97B4-722D012FDF1E.html
The PDF: (for those who love trees so much we like to hold them in our hands…) https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Horizon-7/7.4/horizon-upgrades.pdf
If you’re moving from View 7.x to 7.4 then there’s another guide that just covers patches that may be a help.
https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Horizon-7/7.4/horizon-upgrades/GUID-24196067-1E50-45F0-B008-21B65448DB8F.html#GUID-24196067-1E50-45F0-B008-21B65448DB8F
That said, I still like to review the whole scope of what needs touched when there’s a new release. Essentially, I want to know how much has changed in the whole stack of software. Release notes cover it, but I sometimes like to dig into the full documentation to understand more of how things have changed.
From a whole-system upgrade, here’s the basic list from the documentation above:
- Back up View Composer & vCenter, halt some tasks per documentation & Upgrade Composer
(Composer operations go down during an upgrade) - Backup View Connection Server & Upgrade View Connection Server
(non-reversible, pay attention to special ordered requirements if you’re still using security servers) - Backup Security Servers & Upgrade Security Servers along with each one’s paired Connection Server
- Upgrade GPO’s
- Upgrade vCenter (if needed), then vSphere
- Upgrade the Horizon Agents on RDS servers or Virtual Desktops/Gold Images
- Upgrade Horizon Client
3 cheers for 7 easy steps to an upgrade.
But what about App Volumes, UEM, and other components that View works with? There’s a few considerations I’d like to lay out in a future post, but VMware sends you to the newly pluralized “Product Interoperability Matrices” and doesn’t clutter up their documentation with those other products, though it would be nice if there were more to alert that they do have to be considered.
https://partnerweb.vmware.com/comp_guide2/sim/interop_matrix.php
The bottom line is that for 7.4, it’s green lights for other products below at the versions specified:
UEM back to 9.0
AppVolumes back to 2.12.0
Mirage back to 5.8.1
Horizon Clients back to 3.2.0
UAG back to 2.1
IDM back to 2.9.1
NSX back to 6.2.4
vRealize Operations Manager back to 6.3 or vRealize Operations for Horizon only back to 6.5.0 (this should be upgraded at the same time if you’re using it)