VxRail: Estimated Minimum Update Time Feature Overview

With VxRail version 4.7.300 and later, a new upgrade estimation time has been added to the VxRail plugin Upgrade section. This feature attempts to estimate the time it takes to upgrade your VxRail environment to a later version of VxRail software before the upgrade starts.

The message displayed in the VxRail Update UI has a format similar to:

Estimated Minimum Update Time: <#> Hours.  Note: This estimate does not include the time to resynchronize data on the cluster.

The Estimated Minimum Update Time is a fixed time calculation based on the number of components that must be upgraded in the VxRail cluster. Each component has an estimated time that it takes to upgrade. Once the list of components that must be upgraded have been identified, the time it takes to upgrade all components is estimated.

An example of some component upgrade times would include:

• VxRail Manager = 5 minutes
• VMware vCenter Server Appliance or Platform Service Controller = 30 minutes
• vSphere ESXi = 5 minutes
• HBA driver = 1 minute
• And so on for each component

• vCenter or Platform Service Controller migrations to a new major version such as vCenter 6.5 -> 6.7
  • This operation would require a new vCenter appliance to be deployed, the configuration and data to be exported and then imported into the new appliance. The time this would take would depend on several factors such as size of database/events, network performance, and so forth.
• If there are vSAN resync operations in progress during the upgrade, vSAN resync operations can result in delays for a host going into Maintenance Mode before it is upgraded. Causes for vSAN resync would include:
  • Existing vSAN resync operations were already in progress before the start of the upgrade.
  • A host must catch up on changes in vSAN delta after being upgraded while it was in maintenance mode.
  • vSAN maintenance tasks initiate like Proactive Rebalance or Concatenation Merge operations
  • New virtual machines, increases in virtual disk sizes, or changes in vSAN storage policy
• Slow virtual machine migrations due to high CPU or memory usage, high disk I/O within the virtual machine, or high network usage - While upgrading a host, it must be put into maintenance mode and all virtual machines migrated to other hosts. On busy or resource-intensive virtual machines, this can result in migrations taking longer.
• Load, Resourcing, or Congestion issues either locally on the VxRail Cluster or impacting on the VxRail environment

As per VxRail best practice, ensure compatibility with any additional Dell, VMware, or other third-party solutions or software before upgrading to a later release of VxRail. Incompatibilities or dependencies with the new version of VxRail may result in operational issues with additional solutions or software.

Some example software would include Recover Point for Virtual Machines, VMware NSX, VMware vRealize Suite, VMware Horizon View, and third-party backup solutions.