vSphere Cluster with a Single Image

VMware LCM allows the maintenance of a cluster with a single ESXi image. When creating a new cluster, you could create/import an image from an existing host in the inventory. The host can either be independent or part of a cluster. All you need to do is ensure that you select a host with the desired ESXi version/build for the new cluster.

Here, we’ve selected an ESXi host in maintenance mode. However, it is essential to note that the host selected does not need to be in maintenance mode.

The Recent Tasks pane should show an Extract Image task kicked off.

This creates an offline bundle on the ESXi host (/var/vmware/lifecycle/hostSeed/OfflineBundle-xxxx-xxx-xxx).

Then, import it into VLCM (/storage/updatemgr/patchstore/hostupdate).

In vLCM, you should see an image created under Image Depot.

Once completed, the Updates tab of the cluster should display the desired image associated with it.

From now on, hosts added to the cluster will be remediated to match the desired ESXi build.

Let’s try adding a host to this cluster and see what happens….

Now that a new host has been added to the cluster, the Updates tab reports its compliance status as unknown. You will need to kick off a compliance check here.

If the compliance check finds the host non-compliant, you should review and remediate the host.

Once complete, the cluster should report Image Compliance for all hosts in the cluster.