Upgrade Standalone Aria Orchestrator (vRO)
Aria Life Cycle Manager 8.12 is now able to IMPORT a vSPHERE vRO. Therefore, all updates can now be run via LCM.
(IF you own an Aria AUTOMATION licensing…currently (25/11/23), it’s not possible with vCenter Licensing.
If you are using LCM to deploy a vRO installation (which will only allow you to use vRA Authentication and not vCenter SSO Authentication), then Updating the installation is straightforward using LCM. As of the writing of this article, vRO standalone is not supported with LCM, so updating has to be done the harder way, which is manual.
The question that you may ask is why one has to have a Standalone installation in the first place. There are multiple reasons why :
Using vCoin vCenter plugin. Running workflow directly out of vCenter with a right-click
Automation of critical Services that should not be exposed to vRA, such as the management Cluster
Using vCenter SSO authentication instead of vRA authentication
Using the vRO Licence, you automatically get with vCenter to automate everything
a vRO installation in a remote Datacenter or location to minimize command time lag
The following instructions should help you maintain an up-to-date image of Orchestrator.
The following steps are ONLY for Orchestrator STANDALONE.
Login and go to vmware.com | Automation | Orchestrator or vmware.com | vSphere | Orchestrator
READ the Release Notes. It’s always a good short read, and will update you on what’s happening with the product.
Download the Update Repository
Upload the ISO to an ISO store on vCenter.
If you have problems uploading because you get “The Operation failed”, this is just due to certificate issues, which is an easy fix:
Click on the ESXi server name that is displayed in the error message
The website of this ESXi server will open. Accept the Certificate
You should now see ESXi’s webpage
Retry the upload in vCenter.
Create a new Snapshot of vRO
connect the upgrade ISO to the VM
ssh into Orchestrator and login with root
Run the following commands
mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom/
vracli upgrade exec -y --prepare --profile lcm --repo cdrom://
Wait until the preparation has finished (about 10min)
Run the following command
vracli upgrade exec
Depending on the update, this might take at least 20min.
The VM will very likely reboot. After a reboot login with SSH and root again
Run the following commands to check on completion
vracli upgrade status
Check if the upgrade has finished.
You can now detach the CDROM from the VM and delete the file from ISO Datastore. You will need to answer a question on the VM as the CDROM was unmounted from the reboot, and vSphere thinks it’s still in use. So just answer to remove it.
That is all.
It’s a straightforward process that will keep your installation up to date. You may even use some other tools, such as PowerShell with PowerCLI, to automate these steps.
