#VCP vSphere Lifecycle manager was called vSphere Update manger in previous versions. The main difference is, that Lifecycle manager adds vLCM images. Inside the newer image you can add multiple components and vendor addons and manage your cluster with a single image. Other VMware solutions like NSX, Tanzu, vSAN, HA integrate into the Lifecycle manager and automatically adds the required components to the image. ## Quick boot Quick boot is a warm boot that allows booting ESXi much quicker. No Firmware and device initilization is done during a quickboot. There is no option for quickboot in the GUI anymore, the host itself decides if it is compatible or not. Quick boot together with the suspend to RAM option can be used to update hosts with VMs that cannot be migrated to another host but need to have minimal downtime. ### Requirements - supported server hardware (usually all big vendors like HP, dell etc.) - Native drivers only, no vmklinux support - secureboot disabled - tpm disabled - ESXi 6.7 or later - no pass through allowed ## Image depot Updates can be imported directly via offline depots or synced online directly from VMware. ### Vendor Addons vendor specific software for Dell drivers e.g. ## Image The Image inside the Lifecycle manager allows us to manage multiple ESXi with the same update configuration. The Image sets a desired state for a cluster once attached and all ESXi hosts will be remediated to reach that state, either automatically or with user interaction. Furthermore you may add configuration for your ESXi host to your image aswell(although NSX is not compatible with image configuration). For example: Update 8.0 U3 with HP vendor addon 3.2 and firmware addon community NIC drivers. ### Workflow 1. Create Image with specifications on Cluster/Host 1. ESXi Version(required) 2. Vendor Addon(optional) 3. Firmware and Drivers Addon(optional) 4. components(optional) 2. Check for image Compliance 3. Make Entity compliant 1. remediate each host individually 2. remediate complete cluster, Lifecycle manager will work through all hosts itself utilizing DRS 4. Remediation 1. Set remediation settings 2. Lifecycle Manager sets ESXi host into maintenance 3. installs Image (ESXi patch, Vendor addon etc.) 4. reboots ESXi host (depends on type of update) 5. checks for compliance after update. 6. Exits maintenance mode ### Export Lifecycle manager Images can be exported into different formats for reusage in other Clusters. - JSON - contains only metadata, Software repositories must be configured in the import target - ISO - Can be used to image new ESXi hosts. Contains all of the software/addons etc. - Offline bundle - Contains all components including software/addons etc. to be imported into another Lifecycle Manager depot. ### Update VM components Lifecycle manager can also be used to update either VMware tools or VM Hardware version of VMs. ## 🔗Resources - https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/316378/upgrade-path-and-interoperability-of-vmw.**html** - https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2020/04/vsphere-7-update-planner.html