Colocation to Virtualization

Below is information on how to patch/update a VMWare ESXi server.  This example will be using the VMWare Update Manager application from a Vista PC.  First, lets look at the current version information of the Infrastructure Client and ESXi.  Open Infrastructure Client and connect to the ESXi server.  Once connected, go to Help-> About VMware Infrastructure.

This shows that Infrastructure Client is v2.5.0 build 103682 and ESXi is v3.5.0 build 103909

Next, go to start-> programs-> VMware-> VMware Infrastructure Update

Click on the Hosts tab and select the host

Once the host(s) is selected, go back to the Updates tab and click “Check Now”.  This will go out and find updates applicable to both the ESXi server and Virtual Infrastructure client.

Select “Install Updates” and let it go

Once the update is downloaded, it will start the import process

In this example, once the code is imported to the ESXi implementation, the installation starts

Completion!

From the Virtual Infrastructure point of view

Time to bring the server down.  First, shutdown all virtual machines and enter the server into maintenance mode.  Since this update requires the ESX server to be restarted, it is done so here.

The following shows the updates took.
Infrastructure Client is v2.5.0 build 103682 and ESXi is v3.5.0 build 123629

Note:  This is one of three methods of updating ESXi.  Using this GUI, it gives you the ability to update multiple ESXi hosts at once.  The other methods are using the Remote Command Line Interface(RCLI) called vihostupdate that can be downloaded from vmware and used either as software on a local windows server or added as a VM appliance.  Last is remoteInstall.exe which is found in the patch zip file that can be downloaded from VMware. I will post a blog in a few days detailing the use of vihostupdate.  Do not forget that the GUI Infrastructure Update allows for regular scheduling of updates!