VCenter 6.7 Support

[Kevin4]

Declan,

Thanks for the update.  Hopefully all goes to plan with a Decemeber release.  We have HPe DL380 Gen 9 Servers with Simplivity.

[MikeSeden]

        I appologize to the engineers that have upgraded to Vsphere 6.7 while using SimpliVity before the hypervisor has been tested. What I find as the biggest glitch, while troubleshooting interoperability among our legagy deployments and proposing upgrade paths, is that before aquired by HPE SimpliVity was an Infrastructure as a Service solution that used VMware. It was deployed on the server solution of the customers choice. Now that HPE has aquired SimpliVity and it is only deployed on the HPE Proliant, It is still a Hyperconverged Infrastructure as a Service  (IaaS) solution that uses VMware.  Now we offer that solution using Hyper-V.

      What I am getting at, is that it is a SimpiVity solution that uses VMware or Hyper-V, NOT a VMware or Hyper-V solution that uses SimpliVity. If you wish to upgrade VMware or uddate Hyper-V, why wouldn't you wait until the solution you purchased, has tested the newest version of the Hypervisor it uses to make sure it works well and is compatable? Why would you upgrade the hypervisor and then say that there are problems with compatability with the hyperconverged SimpliVity solution I purchased?

     HPE is testing for component upgrades continuously as well as developing software defined solutions, bug fixes and integration updates. What my suggestion for piece of mind is, that we as engineers remember that SimpliVity is a IaaS Hardware/Software solution deployed on a server Solution that uses a hypervisor solution. It is not a VMware solution installed on a server solution that uses SimpliVity.

[ikbarbero]

Mike, I agree with you that system interoperability should be double checked before updates, but the discussion here is about the delay in support new versions.

Our account team share with us the reasons for the delay, I have no doubt that they where sincere to us, but as I told them that is not acceptable for us. We request per contract to other partners (for example, backup vendors) to support new vSphere major releases within 90 days. I hope that for the next mayor relase there was no such delay, for us this time was a warning. Next time we will lose confidence in the product.

For sure we will be updating to 6.7u1 just after release of 3.7.7. We are waiting for it that much.

PS: how is the upgrade of vcenter procedure with svt?. I guess that first update federation, then upgrade vcenter and finally, if you wish, update host. Will the docs describes the processs?

[DeclanOR]

@ikbarbero@Kevin4@ICPMuenchen

Hi All,

As promised previously, please see the following KBA regards Upgrading to ESXi 6.7Update1

Upgrading will require some manual intervention on each host.

https://internal.support.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?sp4ts.oid=null&docLocale=en_US&docId=mmr_sf-EN_US000022851

Thanks,

DeclanOR

[ikbarbero]

Great news @DeclanOR

I guess that this is a good news and the 3.7.7 release will be available soon :)

[DeclanOR]

@ikbarbero

It's good news yes.

Still can't give a definitive date. I think hopefully before the end of this month (20th December'ish), and if not, then early January.

Just to summarise again for everyone on this thread regards vSphere 6.7Update1 support:

1. SVT software version 3.7.7 will support this
2. Only on HPE platform for now
3. ESXi host must be running version 6.5U2b, or 6.5U2c before you ca upgrade to 6.7U1
4. There is manual intervention needed on each 6.5 host before upgrade to remove the emulex driver.

So, it will be supported, but has some pre-requisites, all of which are here on this thread.

Thanks,

DeclanOR

[MikeD88]

Hi @DeclanOR,

With regards to the Emulex driver, do you know if that advice still applies if the hosts are a newer version that 6.5 U2c? I'm currently at 6.5 P03 (Build 10884925), which is quite a few patch versions higher. My hosts are HPE Simplivity DL380 Gen9's.

Thanks!

[DeclanOR]

Hi @MikeD88

Just looking at the interop guide , it seems that your current ESXi build version is not a qualified build.

You are 4 versions ahead of our latest qualified version.

I'm afraid I can't answer your question with 100% security as this would not have been tested from our side.

I would suggest to continue as normal without carrying out the steps mentioned for the removal of the vib as per the KB article.

If you see the same failure as mentioned in the article, I think you can probably follow the KB article to proceed.

Again.............I'm afraid I can't say for sure what the behaviour will be on your current build, but in my own personal opinion, this is the route I would go.

Question: What version of SimpliVity software are you currently running?

Thanks,

DeclanOR

[MikeD88]

Hi @DeclanOR,

Thanks for the response. I'm currently running version 3.7.6.160 of Simplivity. Do you publish the qualified VMware patch levels anywhere?

Cheers!

[DeclanOR]

Hi @MikeD88

In my previous comment I provided a smart link to the interop guide wher you can see the supported ESXi versions.

Thanks,

DeclanOR