VMware recently released a bunch of new software versions for various products including vSphere and SRM. I’m going to cover the updates to vSphere in a different post soon, so this one is only for SRM. The new 8.4 release doesn’t have a lot of features in it (mostly UI changes), but it is required for the vSphere 7.0 U2 patch. Frankly, I don’t recall such a tight coupling between a vSphere update and what might be deemed a major SRM release (since it is a full point higher), but then again, VMware has been putting so much into these vSphere “updates” that they are like major releases in themselves.
Fortunately for us, VMware recognizes that 8.4 does not have major code changes and therefore they automatically certified it for any Photon (read: Docker) SRAs that support SRM 8.3. So as we support SRM 8.3, we support SRM 8.4. I included the compatibility matrix screenshot up top. But why isn’t Windows also certified? Well, as I’ve explained in previous posts, SRM 8.3 is the last version to support Windows. So if you want SRM 8.4 you need to move to the appliance. If you do, be sure to use our latest SRA here.
Not that it is indicative of what you’ll experience, but I’ll offer a quick assessment of the upgrade to 8.4 in my lab. Well, it didn’t go well. I have 2 SRM installations (4 appliances). Each SRM recognized the 8.4 ISO without issue, accepted the upgrade, and “finished” by rebooting. Upon reboot, SRM is going to request you reconfigure the environment as has been the case for the recent upgrades. It supplies your values for you so you just need to add the user/pass for PSC. You may, like me, run into the time skew issue between the vCenter and SRM as VMware requires 3 seconds difference or less. Mine never seem to be that close. Anyway, once the upgrade finishes, you’d think everything would be good to go. Nope. I was asked to reconfigure again. That was on 2 appliances I think. The other 2 appliances removed all PSC information and wanted me to configure from the start, which would have overwritten my environment. At that point, and being a lab, it seemed pointless to fiddle with it and I re-installed all 4. Could my issues have been resolved with time and maybe an SR with VMware? Probably, but I do so much tear up and down, I just don’t have the time for that. All that to say I hope your experience is better. Happy upgrading.
Dell PowerFlex and PowerMax with VMware 