vSphere Update Manager (VUM) is the patch management tool for VMware vSphere 6.5. IT administrators can use VUM to patch and upgrade ESXi hosts, VMware Tools, virtual hardware, and virtual appliances.
In the vSphere 6.5 release, VUM has been integrated into the vCenter Server appliance (VCSA) for the Linux platform. The integration eliminates remote data transfers between VUM and VCSA, and greatly simplifies the VUM deployment process. As a result, certain data-driven tasks achieve a considerable performance improvement over VUM for the Windows platform, as illustrated in the following figure:
To present the new performance characteristics for VUM in vSphere 6.5, a paper has been published. In particular, the paper describes the following topics:
- VUM server deployment
- VUM operations including scan host, scan VM, stage host, remediate host, and remediate VM
- Remediation concurrency
- Resource consumption
- Running VUM operations with vCenter Server provisioning operations
The paper also offers a number of performance tips and best practices for using VUM during patch maintenance. For the full details, read vSphere Update Manager Performance and Best Practices.