Welcome back to the Horizon Cloud Connector know-how series! So far, we have introduced you to the Horizon Cloud Connector and walked you through its onboarding process. In the third blog post of this series, we are going to talk about the auto-upgrade feature of the Horizon Cloud Connector.
Why do you need auto-upgrade?
The Horizon Cloud Connector is a critical component bridging the Horizon Connection Server to the Horizon Control Plane. One of the key customer benefits of embracing our cloud-managed service offerings versus the on-prem solutions is the value of on-going and rapid delivery and updates of the features. To leverage the latest cloud-managed features, upgrading the Cloud Connector to the latest versions is essential. VMware facilitates the auto-upgrade of the Cloud Connector appliances with no manual intervention. Auto-upgrade not only makes sure that customers get the latest features, but also simplifies the management of the Cloud Connector appliance lifecycle. It is one less thing component admins need to worry about when it comes to upgrading manually.
So, how does the Auto-upgrade work?
The upgrade of the Cloud Connector is based on a Blue-Green deployment model. Whenever a new Cloud Connector release is available, the latest (Green) version of the Cloud Connector will be deployed, and the configurations from existing (Blue) Cloud Connector will be migrated onto it. Once the Green appliance is configured and the health checks are successful, the Blue appliance configurations are reset and the Blue appliance is shut down.
Image 1: The latest (green) Cloud Connector will be deployed and the existing Cloud Connector will be shut down.
What do you need to know before getting started?
Auto-upgrade eligibility:
• The Cloud Connector auto-upgrades are supported from 1.4 and later releases.
• If you are on the previous three versions of the Cloud Connector, you can get auto-grade to the current version. The Cloud Connector will always be upgraded to the latest released version.
• The Auto-upgrade feature is supported only for the Cloud Connector deployments managed by vSphere. For example: AVS Google Cloud deployments are not support auto-upgrade.
• The Cloud Connector will always be upgraded to the latest released version.
Auto-upgrade prerequisites:
• The Cloud Connector should always be deployed with a static IP.
• For each Cloud Connector, an additional temporary static IP is needed for deploying Green appliance during upgrade cycle.
• Ensure that there is at least 50GB disk space on the host where the Cloud Connector appliance is deployed prior to triggering the upgrades.
• Providing valid vCenter details and network details are mandatory for the Cloud Connector upgrades.
Getting started
To enable auto-upgrade on a Cloud Connector appliance:
• Configure VMware vCenter and network details in the Cloud Connector Configuration Portal.
• Contact VMware support team to enable upgrade on that specific Horizon Pod.
• Once the Horizon Pod is upgrade-ready, upgrade can be scheduled from horizon admin UI.
The VMware vCenter and network details are one-time configurations, which are required and will be retained and used for any upcoming Cloud Connector upgrades in the future. Typically, upgrades take an hour to complete with a down time of less than a minute.
Image 2: Configure vCenter and network details on the Cloud Connector Configuration Portal.
Image 3a: Schedule the upgrade from the Horizon Cloud admin console
Image 3b: Select the time in the pop-up
Image 4: Congratulations! After upgrade, the Cloud Connector version is updated in the Cloud Connector Configuration Portal
Upgrade errors and remediations
If any errors occur during upgrade, they will be reported in the Horizon Cloud admin console or to the VMware Global Support Services (GSS). Errors need to be fixed manually, and the errors in the Horizon Cloud admin console must be marked as resolved to retrigger the upgrade.
Some examples of possible errors and solutions are.
• Error: Upgrades cannot be triggered because the Cloud Connector was not deployed with static IP.
• Solution: You can choose to do a manual upgrade in this case.
• Error: VMware vCenter credentials missing or not valid.
• Solution: Re-enter the VMware vCenter details on the Cloud Connector Configuration Portal and retrigger upgrade.
• Error: VMware vCenter not reachable or there’s network issues in the infrastructure.
• Solution: Ensure VMware vCenter is reachable from the Cloud Connector by freeing up the space on the Host Data Store.
• Error: Connection between the Cloud Connector and the Horizon Control Plane is lost.
• Solution: Ensure the Cloud Connector is up and verify the health of the services from the Cloud Connector Configuration Portal.
• Error: Insufficient disk space on the host.
• Solution: Ensure at least 50 GB disk space on the host where the Cloud Connector is deployed for upgrades to be successful.
In case of any other errors, please contact VMware Global Support Services (GSS).
Resources
• How to onboard a Manually Deployed Horizon Pod to Horizon Cloud Tenant Environment
• Horizon Cloud Connector 1.8 Release – Availability of two configuration profiles for different access level to Horizon Control Plane services
• Horizon Cloud Connector Know-How Series – Introduction
• Horizon Cloud Connector Know-How Series – Onboarding Cloud Connector
