Tag: Upgrade
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Failed VKS Cluster Upgrade Recovery Without Deleting Nodes (VCAP-VKS Exam Series, Part 33)
A stalled VKS cluster upgrade is a live reconciliation loop blocked on a precondition, not a crashed job, and deleting the stuck node destroys your evidence without unblocking anything. Here is how to classify the stall from Cluster API conditions and clear it in the right context.
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Supervisor Update and Kubernetes Version Upgrade Paths (VCAP-VKS Exam Series, Part 25)
Objective 4.10 as a runbook: legal version paths, the Supervisor Management update flow, and why four control plane VMs mid run is healthy rather than broken. Plus the host evacuation phase that quietly eats your maintenance window.
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VKS Cluster Autoscaler Install, Configuration and Upgrade (VCAP-VKS Exam Series, Part 22)
Objective 4.7 asks you to create, configure and upgrade autoscalers on VKS. This Part builds an autoscaled cluster from annotations, installs the package, measures six real scale up events, and walks the pause and repin sequence that an autoscaled upgrade demands.
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VKS Cluster Rolling Updates and Configuration Changes (VCAP-VKS Exam Series, Part 21)
A rolling update on a VKS cluster behaves differently depending on whether you changed the Kubernetes version or a configuration variable. Part 21 runs both against the reference estate, shows the output that lies to you, and covers objective 4.6.
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Troubleshooting a Stalled VCF 9.1 Upgrade and Rolling Back (VCF 9.1 Upgrade Series, Part 14)
How to recover a stalled VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1 upgrade: read the failed task, fix the three most common stalls, and understand where a rollback is actually possible.
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VCF 9.1 Post-Upgrade Validation and Health Checks (VCF 9.1 Upgrade Series, Part 13)
How to validate a VCF 9.1 upgrade before you call it done: layered health checks from VCF Operations to vSAN, the SoS health check, and when to remove snapshots.
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Upgrade VCF 9.1 Workload Domains as a Day-N Job (VCF 9.1 Upgrade Series, Part 12)
Workload domains upgrade to VCF 9.1 as an optional Day-N job. The per-domain order of NSX, vCenter and ESX, the new up-to-256-cluster parallelism, shared NSX planning, and the workload traps to plan around.
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Upgrade SDDC Manager and the Management Domain to VCF 9.1 (VCF 9.1 Upgrade Series, Part 11)
How to upgrade SDDC Manager from VCF Operations and then bring the VCF 9.1 management domain core up in order: NSX Manager, vCenter, ESX, and the NSX Edge cluster, with prechecks, timings and the depot gotcha.
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VCF 9.1 License Server, Avi Load Balancer and Live Recovery Components (VCF 9.1 Upgrade Series, Part 10)
In the VCF 9.1 upgrade, the license server, NSX Advanced Load Balancer and VMware Live Recovery all sit off the core path. Here is how to clear them before SDDC Manager builds the plan.
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Deploy VCF Management Services and the Software Depot in the 9.1 Upgrade (VCF 9.1 Upgrade Series, Part 9)
After VCF Operations and SDDC Manager reach 9.1, you deploy VCF Management Services, the container cluster that hosts fleet lifecycle, the software depot and the license server. Here is the IP and FQDN plan, the deploy steps and the fleet migration.
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Upgrade VCF Operations to 9.1 with the PAK File and Software Update (VCF 9.1 Upgrade Series, Part 8)
Upgrade VCF Operations to 9.1 first with the PAK file and Software Update, then let the fleet management migration fold the old 9.0 appliance into your new instance.
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VCF 9.1 Upgrade Sequence End to End and Why the Order Matters (VCF 9.1 Upgrade Series, Part 7)
The full VCF 9.1 upgrade sequence in the order the platform enforces: VCF Operations first, then the depot, VCF Management Services, SDDC Manager, and the NSX, vCenter and ESX domain core, with rough timings and why each step sits where it does.
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Architecture & Design
About the Author
Dr Pranay Jha
Dr. Pranay Jha is a Cloud and AI Consultant with 18+ years of experience in hybrid cloud, virtualization, and enterprise infrastructure transformation. He specializes in VMware technologies, multi-cloud strategy, and Generative AI solutions. He holds a PhD in Computer Applications with research focused on Cloud and AI, has published multiple research papers, and has been a VMware vExpert since 2016 and a VMUG Community Leader.
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