NSX-t upgrade 3.2.x to 4.1.x with Vxrail hardware - Part-1

Pre-Validation steps before Upgrade

1. Verify the BOM version of Vxrail both source and target along with VxRail components

2. Verify the NSX -T components in VMware site using url compatibility matrix

3. As per support matrix, Vxrail x.x.482 support (vCenter + ESXi) 7.0 u3 has a compatibility to both NSX-T versions 4.0.01 and 4.1.2.x as shown below

4. Sequence of upgrade (NSX-t has got both forward and backward compatibility with other components – we can do upgrade in either way

a) NSX-T

b) Vxrail components (Vxrail manager / vcenter/ ESxi )—it is auto-upgrade

or

a) Vxrail components (Vxrail manager / vcenter/ ESxi ) —it is auto-upgrade

b) NSX-T

5. Link to download the latest NSX-T version –released Nov 7^th 2023 (key-in VMware customer connect credentials)

https://customerconnect.vmware.com/downloads/details?downloadGroup=NSX-4121&productId=1324&rPId=113735

Now Let's go through the Upgrade Pre-Checks

Points to ponder:

1. In NSX-T, run a backup and download the backup file to your desktop

2. Identify and record the administrative user IDs and passwords

3. Verify that you can log in to the NSX Manager web user interface.

4.Check the Dashboard, system overview, host transport nodes, edge transport nodes, NSX Edge cluster, transport nodes, HA status of the edge, and all logical entities to make sure that all the status indicators are green, deployed, and do not show any warnings.

5. Validate North-South connectivity by pinging out from a VM.

6. Validate that there is an East-West connectivity between any two VMs in your environment.

7. Record BGP / OSPF states on the NSX Edge devices.

Supported Upgrade Paths

The supported upgrade paths for the NSX product versions. Adhere to the following upgrade paths for each NSX release version.

NSX 3.2.x > NSX 4.1.x.

The following upgrade path are NOT supported:

Upgrade from NSX 3.2.2 to 4.0.1 or 4.0.1.1. --> Not applicable as we are in 3.2.3

Upgrade from NSX 3.2.3 to 4.1.0.0 or 4.1.0.1--->upgrading to 4.1.2.1 (need to be in this version)

Upgrade Sequence of components

NSX upgrade coordinator >NSX Edge cluster > Hosts > Management plane

Now Let's go through the Upgrade Steps

Note: while upgrading run on respective component (NSX manager/Edges/ESXi) in nsxcli mode, run the below command to check the upgrade status

get upgrade progress-status

Refer - part 2 for detailed steps

https://vdrumz.com/blog/nsx-t-upgrade-3-2-x-to-4-2-x-Part-2

Now Let's go through the Upgrade - Post check

1.From your browser, log in as a local admin user to an NSX Manager at https://nsx-managerip-address/login.jsp?local=true.

2 Select System > Upgrade

3.Verify that the overall upgrade version, component version, and initial and target product version are accurate and make sure that all the status indicators are green, deployed, and do not show any warnings.

4. validate the user "admin" Password-expiration using below command

Nsxcli get user admin password-expiration
nsxcli set user admin password-expiration

Now Let's go through the Upgrade - Troubleshooting

1.Log in to the NSX Manager CLI as root user and navigate to the upgrade coordinator log files

path: /var/log/upgrade-coordinator/upgrade-coordinator.log.

Navigate to the system log files

path:/var/log/syslog

or

API log files

path: /var/log/proton/ nsxapi.log

Thanks for reading 😀

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