There are a number of steps to take in order to upgrade your NSX installation. First of all the NSX Manager appliance will need to be updated, followed by your clusters/hosts, then the NSX edge components. I’ll look at each stage in turn in this post. Before starting though, note that before any upgrade you should check the the Product Interoperability Matrix at https://partnerweb.vmware.com/comp_guide/sim/interop_matrix.php, and, of course, should have a working roll back plan in case that becomes necessary.
Upgrading NSX Manager
Before upgrading NSX Manager you will first need to download the upgrade bundle for the version you wish to upgrade to. Once you have that, log into the NSX Manager web interface and go to the NSX Manager Virtual Appliance Management page, then the ‘Upgrade‘ section:
Click the ‘Upgrade’ button, then browse to the upgrade bundle downloaded earlier:
Click continue then wait for the process to finish. Once it does you will need to log back into NSX Manager web interface. Confirm the version and build number matches the upgrade bundle (this is displayed in the top right of the screen):
Upgrading Clusters
After upgrading NSX Manager, the next step is to upgrade the clusters that are involved in NSX. Clusters are upgraded in the Host Preparation screen in the vCenter web client:
After upgrading NSX Manager you should have an Upgrade option next to each cluster. Note that each host will be put into maintenance mode during the update, as it will require a reboot. Once the process has completed the ‘Installation Status‘ column should display the new version, and the hosts should show as ‘Ready‘.
Upgrading NSX Edge
To upgrade NSX Edge devices, click on NSX Edges. Select the Edge instance, then select ‘Upgrade Version‘ on the Actions menu. Once complete, the Version column will display the updated version.