Upgrade vRB v6.2.3 to v7.1

We wanted to upgrade our EHC lab instance of vRealize Business Standard (v6.2.3) to vRealize Business for Cloud (v7.1.0). Using vRB v7.x has been a common request for some of our Financial customers who required vRB to support the Swiss Franc.

So after a quick glance at the vRB 7.x Install Guide, we realised that this is a migration, not an upgrade.

The fact that a migration is required is not entirely clear if you (don’t read the docs and jump straight in!) try to upgrade vRB directly from the vRB Appliance.

If you go to the Update tab within the vRB web console @ https://<vRB_IPAddress&gt;:5480 it would be fair to assume that you could perform a simple upgrade. To Assume makes an ass out of u and me … etc etc 🙂

So as per the vRB Install Guide, we need to deploy new vRB appliance first, and then migrate to it.

Why? The earlier versions of vRealize Business Standard were based on 11 SLES, whereas, the 7.0 and later versions are based on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 12. So, the 6.2.3 upgrade process to 7.x.x involves deployment of the server and then migration of data.

Anything else to be aware of? After you upgrade, the cost trend of demand analysis and its details are lost. Also, the Demand Analysis option is renamed to Consumption Analysis with additional features.

vRA v6.2.3 is now supported with vRB v7.1, as per the VMware Interop Matrix, so we deployed the new ova for vRB v7.1.0.

For the record/posterity etc, this is what the old vRB v6.2.3 dashboard looks like in vRA

Onwards and upwards then!

This new instance of vRB v7.1 needs to initially run in parallel to the older instance of vRB v6.2.3, so we had to use a new IP address and FQDN. We updated DNS of course, and proceeded to deploy the new vRB v7.1 ova.

Once the new instance of vRB v7.1 was deployed and ready, we logged into the appliance @ https://<newvRBIPAddress&gt;:5480 and navigated to the Migrator tab

From there we entered the details of the old/original vRB v6.2.3 instance, clicked Migrate, and waited a few minutes before being presented with a Data Migration Completed message, as shown below:

Next step stated in the vRB Install doc is to register this vRB instance with vRA, but for our environment, we needed to create and apply CA-signed certificates for this new vRB v7.1 machine, so we did that first.

I know, I know, you really don’t want to create and use a signed CA cert, but you should. You really should. Deep breaths, it will be ok 🙂

So once we had our certificate request (.csr file) created, we submitted it to our local CA server, using the correct Certificate template.

Once submitted, we downloaded the certificate locally as ‘Base 64 encoded’, and renamed the file to rui.crt (this requires changing the file extension).

Next step is to replace the certificate on the vRB v7.1 appliance. Browse to the vRB web console @ https://<newvRBIPAddress>:5480 and navigate to Administration > SSL. For this we need 2 files:

• rui.key (created earlier with the certificate request)
• rui.crt

As indicated in the screenshot above, copy and paste the entire contents (including the BEGIN and END lines) of the rui.key and rui.crt files into the RSA Private Key and Certificate fields respectively.

Click Replace Certificate, and hopefully, if all is well, the certificate wil be replaced successfully, as shown below:

So onto the next step which is to register vRA and SSO credentials with this new vRB v7.1 machine.

Browse to the vRB web console @ https://<newvRBIPAddress>:5480 and navigate to Registration > vRA from where we need to enter the following credentials:

• Hostname e.g vRealize Automation Server (vra-vip-FQDN)
  • Important note – Use the vRA vip, not the machine name!
• SSO Default Tenant e.g. vSphere.local
• SSO Admin User e.g. administrator (case sensitive!)
• SSO Admin Password

Once entered, click Register, and all being well, vRA will register with vRB successfully, as shown below:

 

Note: It was at this stage that I remembered to shutdown the original instance of vRB v6.2.3. This could probably have been done as soon as the Migration completed successfully, but I didn’t see it mentioned anywhere!

 

All good so far, next step is to check the Business Management tab in vRA

Log into vRA portal e.g. https://vipvra.ppsilver.lab.local/vcac/org/<tenantURL> as a vRA Tenant Admin, click on the Business Management tab, and you should be presented with a field requiring the license to be entered, as shown:

Enter the license, and away you go with a spanky new vRB for Cloud user interface, as shown:

Business Management Overview

vRB Cloud Comparison

On the licensing front be aware of the management capabilities between the vRB for Cloud Standard and Advanced editions, as highlighted below:

More vRB for Cloud comparison information here

vRB v7.1 Release Notes here

So that’s it for the upgrade from vRB Standard to vRB for Cloud. Long gone are the days of ITBM, everything is Cloud now!

Will need some time to play around with this new version to see what else we can do or what else may need to be fixed. Right away I have spotted a red status alert for vCenter that needs some TLC! 😦

Hope that helps anyway!

Also see Upgrade vRB for Cloud to v7.3.1

 

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