Lots of great new features are being mentioned this week around the entire VMware Cloud Foundation stack and I would like to start with Partial Maintenance Mode since this is one features I have always wished for during my operations career.
Coming from a System Administrator/Engineer role, patching and maintenance has always been simply part of the job. This new feature will now simplify this process tremendously moving forward by allowing pushing patches with minimal VM movement (less overall risk).
How will that process work?
Basically it will pre-load the patch or patches and mount them, then the VMs will fast-suspend and resume to consume the new ESXi patched mount revision.
Should I be concerned with the fast-suspend and resume (FSR) operation?
No. This is the same operation used to add hardware, expand disks, take snapshots, etc.
Why is this useful to me and my organization? Because all your VMs will continue to run as if nothing is happening, there will also be no ongoing migrations to/from the host will stop while it is in this state (partial maintenance mode), and it also will not allow any VM creations on this specific host during this process.
What are some high level requirements?
vSphere and vCenter 8 U3 or later for starters.
Are all patches eligible for live implementation?
No. Some of them will require a full maintenance mode for a reboot, and others will not.
Do you find this useful?
I personally hope that every System Admin that I know starts taking advantage of this great feature ASAP!
Want to learn more about this new feature? Check out the links below!
What’s New in vSphere 8 Update 3? here
VMware – vSphere Live Patch here
All images used in this post are property of VMware by Broadcom
