Upgrade from vSAN 7.0 File Service to U1

My previous blog post I presented how you can enable vSAN file service on vSAN 7.0. In this article I’m going to show the process of upgrade from 7.0 to 7.0 U1, where you are able to use SMB shares. I find the official document about this topic but I felt it is not so detailed. Link here.

Upgrade vSAN 7.0 U1 File Service

Go to vSAN Cluster / Configure / vSAN / Services menu and hit “CHECK UPGRADE” button.

If you have internet connection the system will download the OVF files. In this scenario I chose the manual approach again. The reason is simple, I don’t have internet connection in my lab subnet. So just wait a few minutes and you can select “Manual approach” option.

You need the 7.0 U1 files from my.vmware.com site. Please download the files and click “BROWSE” and select all downloaded files (6 files) after click Open button.

Files will be uploded vCenter server and after wait a little to validation. When the validation process is done just click “UPGRADE” icon and the magic will happen 🙂

During the first step of upgrade the existing VMs will be renamed (numbers changed) and OVF will be deployed.

I try to follow up the whole process and figure out the steps of upgrade from Tasks.

• So it looks like when the first VM deploy is done the next step is clone it and create new VMs on ESXi hosts base on the new image
• In my opinion the original configurations will be migrate or copy to the new VMs from the old ones.
• When the VM or Container with master role was upgraded / move I experienced downtime (my lab environment not so fast, during the process I experienced high network response time eg.: 300ms and I lost some pings)
• During the last step the old VMs will be deleted

“A static IP address pool should be provided as an input while enabling file service workflow. One of the IP addresses is designated as the primary IP address. The primary IP address can be used for accessing all the shares in the file services cluster with the help of SMB and NFSv4.1 referrals. A file server is started for every IP address provided in the IP pool. A file share is exported by only one file server. However, the file shares are evenly distributed across all the file servers. To provide computing resources that help manage access requests, the number of IP addresses must be equal to the number of hosts in the vSAN cluster.”

Source: https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/com.vmware.vsphere.vsan.doc/GUID-82565B82-C911-42F7-85B1-E9EF973EE90C.html

Configure and Manage SMB share on vSAN 7.0 U1

Go back to Go to vSAN Cluster / Configure / vSAN / Services menu and hit “EDIT” button. At the Domain page click “Active directory” and fill the lines below.

You can create SMB share as NFS just go Go to vSAN Cluster / Configure / vSAN / File Shares / menu and click “ADD” button. In the General page change the protocol to SMB. Any others same as NFS.

End of process you are going to see your new SMB share on screen.

It is nice, but I know your next question. How can I manage this share? Was I right? 🙂

Manage your vSAN 7.0 U1 File Service SMB share this way:

• Selct your SMB share what you want to manage
• Click “COPY MMC COMMAND” and copy the command
• Open a CMD by Administrator and paste the command
• MMC will open where you are able to manage your share (ACL, Sessions and others)

Here is the original VMware’s doc.

I hope this post help and encourage you to use (try) VMware vSAN 7.0 U1 File Service. I recommend you Duncan Epping’s blog post about vSAN File Service. He create a kind of FAQ and I hope you will find answares your questions.
http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2020/04/15/vsan-file-services-considerations/