This article is part of a series of posts that deep dive into the new Zerto Virtual Replication 5.0 feature set. To view the other posts check out the index post here.
Overview
VMware Host Maintenance Mode has been around since the first version of vSphere. It allows administrators to place certain hosts into a state where they are excluded from cluster HA and DRS calculations. This is extremely important if you have a host that is acting up or needs patches.
VMware also leverages maintenance mode as part of its Update Manager product for applying patches and upgrades to ESXi hosts.
Unfortunately, in all previous version of Zerto, the VRA running on each host would cause the maintenance mode operation to fail, and the host would never enter maintenance mode. The only way around this was to manually shut down your VRA before placing the host into maintenance mode.
While it sounds like more of a formality, this actually creates some interesting problems when automating administrative tasks in VMware.
What to remember
Before starting your Zerto upgrade to 5.0, make sure that any existing alerts have been remediated. Also keep in mind that during some Zerto upgrades the VIB driver will also need to be upgraded. This can cause a delta sync to occur if protected VMs are not migrated off on the ESXi host that you are upgrading. In the video, In the video, I walk through the workaround and how to minimize delta syncs during upgrades.
Also keep in mind that while you can mix and match different versions of Zerto Virtual Replication, you should have a plan to bring all ZVM’s and VRA’s up to the latest version. This will minimize the work that will need to be done during future upgrades and will ensure that you can support the latest version of your hypervisor platform as well.
The Video
The first thing I want you to remember is that my video editing skills are “newb” at best, so keep that in mind while you check out this video. 🙂
So without further delay, here is the video of doing a Zerto 4.5 to 5.0 upgrade. Also for the best viewing experience make sure to select 1080p as the video format. Enjoy.