Aria Operations 8.18.5 Upgrade to VCF Operations 9.0.2 (Lab Field Notes)

Over the last week or so, I upgraded our lab Aria Operations (vROps) 8.18.5 to VCF Operations 9.0.2. For the most part it went smoothly, but I hit a couple of issues that are worth calling out.

Docs I followed

VCF Operations upgrade guide:

VCF 9.x docs: Upgrade to VCF Operations

Upgrade guide reference if you’re not upgrading through VCF Lifecycle/LCM:

VCF 9.x docs: Upgrade / Backup / Restore (non-VCF path)
Key prerequisite

If you’re on Aria Operations 8.18.5 and targeting VCF Operations 9.0.2, make sure your Aria Suite Lifecycle (vRSLCM) is updated to 8.18.0 Patch 6 first—otherwise LCM may not recognize the 9.0.2 upgrade path.

Binaries and basic prep

Download the following binaries to the /data partition on your Aria Suite Lifecycle appliance:

OVA: VCF-OPS-Lifecycle-Manager-Appliance-9.0.0.X.XXXXXXX.ova
PAK: Operations-Upgrade-9.0.0.X.XXXXXXXX.pak

Environment checks:

Ensure the Fleet Management appliance has a valid FQDN with forward and reverse DNS resolving correctly.
Have a 15+ character password ready for both root and admin@local for the Fleet Management appliance.

Mapping binaries in Aria Suite Lifecycle

Log in to Aria Suite Lifecycle.
Go to Lifecycle Operations → Settings → Binary Mapping → Product Binaries.
Click Add Binaries.
Set Base Location to your binaries path (or /data) and click Discover.
Select the OVA and PAK, then click Add.

Running the upgrade

Lifecycle Operations → Environments
Select the Aria Operations environment → View Details → Upgrade
Let the inventory sync run (or click Trigger Inventory Sync when prompted)
Select:
- Product Version/Repository URL (9.0.x)
- License type
Click Run Assessment
Optional: Take product snapshot
Continue through the steps (LCM ran ~20–22 steps for me)

During the Fleet Management appliance deployment wizard, I hit an odd issue:

The dropdown to select vCenter and Cluster was completely empty.

I tried the usual suspects (inventory sync, reboot, retry)… no luck.

Fix

Broadcom has a KB for it (Solved the problem immediately):

https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/403965/vcenter-server-does-not-appear-in-the-li.html

The short version: delete the existing upgrade request, then run Refresh Data Collection. After the refresh, the dropdown populated with my vCenter/cluster inventory as expected.

Issue #2: DNS (self-inflicted)

My next blocker was DNS… and yeah, this one was on me. I fat-fingered the Fleet Management hostname (missing letters). Once I corrected the DNS record and verified it resolved, the pre-check and upgrade proceeded normally.

Lesson learned: slow down and double-check the exact hostname you’re entering in DNS. 😉

Post-upgrade note: where LCM “moves” to

Once you upgrade to VCF Operations, you’ll notice Aria Operations (vROps) disappears from Aria Suite Lifecycle as a managed product. Lifecycle is now handled inside VCF Operations under:

Fleet Management → Lifecycle

How did your upgrade go?

Have you upgraded to VCF Operations yet? Any surprises or “gotchas” I should add to the list?

Drop a comment below—or if you have questions, feel free to reach out.

— C