Abstract: A method of upgrading an application in a software-defined data center (SDDC) includes: deploying, by lifecycle management software executing in the SDDC, a second appliance, a first appliance executing services of the application at a first version, the second appliance having services of the application at a second version, the services in the first appliance being active and the services in the second appliance being inactive; expanding, by the lifecycle management software, state of the first appliance to support both the services at the first version and the services at the second version; replicating, by the lifecycle management software, the state of the first appliance to the second appliance; performing, by the lifecycle management software, a switchover to stop the services of the first appliance and start the services of the second appliance; and contracting, by the lifecycle management software, state of the second appliance to remove a portion unused by the services at the second version.

Abstract: The present disclosure is related to methods, systems, and machine-readable media for unattended snapshot reversion for upgrades. A request to upgrade a virtual computing instance (VCI) in a software-defined datacenter (SDDC) can be received. A snapshot of the VCI can be created, wherein the snapshot excludes a predefined storage partition associated with the VCI. An upgrade of the VCI can be executed. Executing the upgrade can include performing a plurality of upgrade steps and storing, in the partition, information pertaining to the execution of the upgrade. The snapshot can be reverted to responsive to a cancellation of the upgrade. The upgrade of the VCI can be re-executed from the snapshot. Re-executing the upgrade can include performing a different plurality of upgrade steps determined based on the information pertaining to the execution of the upgrade.

Abstract: Distributed tracing is applied during an upgrade from a first management appliance to a second management appliance. The distributed tracing method includes generating a parent span that encapsulates states of the overall workflow, including a span context that contains a trace identifier and a span identifier, and generating a plurality of child spans. Each child span encapsulates states that represent a piece of the workflow and contains a reference to the parent span context. The states of the child spans include an error tag that indicates whether the piece of the workflow associated with the child span executed with an error. Because child spans may be generated for a piece of the workflow that is executed by a service running in the first or second management appliance, the span context for the parent span is persisted by the first management appliance and replicated for use by the second management appliance.

Abstract: Methods, apparatus, systems, and articles of manufacture are disclosed for state convergence associated with high availability application migration in a virtualized environment. An example apparatus includes at least one memory, machine readable instructions, and processor circuitry to at least one of execute or instantiate the machine readable instructions to identify a high availability slot in a virtual server rack including a first virtual machine (VM) associated with first configuration data that identifies the first VM as a protected VM, transmit second configuration data to a second VM that identifies the first VM as a nonprotected VM and the second VM as the protected VM, after a determination that a network partition is identified based on a failure of a request to retrieve the second configuration data from the second VM, and transfer data from the first VM to the second VM after causing the removal of the network partition.

Abstract: Methods, apparatus, systems, and articles of manufacture are disclosed for high availability (HA) application migration in a virtualized environment. An example apparatus includes at least one memory, instructions in the apparatus, and processor circuitry to at least one of execute or instantiate the instructions to identify an HA slot in a virtual server rack, the HA slot to facilitate a failover of an application executing on a first virtual machine (VM) in the virtual server rack, the first VM identified as a protected VM, deploy a second VM in the HA slot, transfer data from the first VM to the second VM, and, in response to not identifying a failure of at least one of the first or second VMs during the transfer, trigger a shutdown of the first VM, and synchronize migration data associated with the virtual server rack to identify the second VM as the protected VM.

Abstract: Systems, apparatus, articles of manufacture, and methods are disclosed to manage a deployment of virtual machines in a cluster by, in a first host of a plurality of hosts, monitor, with first control plane services, an availability of second control plane services at a second host of the plurality of hosts, wherein the first control plane services and the second control plane services support implementation of application programming interface (API) requests in association with managing a cluster, after a determination that the second control plane services at the second host is not available, assign the first control plane services at the first host to operate in place of the second control plane services at the second host, and in the first host, assign, via the first control plane services at the first host, resources of one or more hosts in the cluster to support the API request.

Abstract: Managing virtual infrastructure with self-initialized upgrades, such as upgrades or configuration changes, includes receiving, by a first virtual machine (VM) that provides a management function for a plurality of VMs, an indication of a pending configuration change. The first VM identifies, from within the plurality of VMs, a VM having a property which is associated with the first VM. This enables the first VM to locate itself among the plurality of VMs that it manages. Based on at least locating itself among the plurality of managed VMs (e.g., determining that the first VM comprises the identified VM), the first VM performs the configuration change on itself. Example changes include increasing memory, increasing storage allocation, increasing the number of processors, and other changes that may be associated with upgrading or migrating a VM.

Abstract: A method of managing configurations of a data center according to a desired state of the configurations includes retrieving a running state of the configurations, comparing the running state against a first desired state of the configurations and determining a drift of the running state from the first desired state, notifying a cloud control plane of the drift, and in response to an instruction issued by the cloud control plane to apply the desired state, configuring the data center according to a second desired state.

Abstract: A method of managing configurations of a plurality of data centers that are each managed by one or more management servers, includes the steps of: in response to a change made to the configurations of one of the data centers, updating a desired state document that specifies a desired state of each of the data centers, the updated desired state document including the change; and instructing each of the data centers to update the configurations thereof according to the desired state specified in the updated desired state document. The management servers include a virtual infrastructure management server and a virtual network management server and the configurations include configurations of software running in the virtual infrastructure management server and the virtual network management server, and configurations of the data center managed by the virtual infrastructure management server and the virtual network management server.

Abstract: Methods, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture manage services in distributed systems are disclosed. An example apparatus includes at least one storage device, and at least one processor to execute instructions to at least perform an update of a first virtual machine in response to a determination that the first virtual machine is to enter a maintenance mode, the update based on storing a first service in a local service registry of the first virtual machine, in response to an unsuccessful update of the first virtual machine, restore the first virtual machine based on a snapshot, and provide the first service from a system service registry to a second virtual machine in response to a query from the second virtual machine for the first service.

Abstract: Distributed tracing is applied during an upgrade from a first management appliance to a second management appliance. The distributed tracing method includes generating a parent span that encapsulates states of the overall workflow, including a span context that contains a trace identifier and a span identifier, and generating a plurality of child spans. Each child span encapsulates states that represent a piece of the workflow and contains a reference to the parent span context. The states of the child spans include an error tag that indicates whether the piece of the workflow associated with the child span executed with an error. Because child spans may be generated for a piece of the workflow that is executed by a service running in the first or second management appliance, the span context for the parent span is persisted by the first management appliance and replicated for use by the second management appliance.

Abstract: A method of on-boarding a virtual infrastructure management (VIM) server appliance in which VIM software for locally managing a software-defined data center (SDDC) is installed, to enable the VIM server appliance to be centrally managed through a cloud service includes upgrading the VIM server appliance from a current version to a higher version that supports communication with agents of the cloud service, modifying configurations of the upgraded VIM server appliance according to a prescriptive configuration required by the cloud service, and deploying a gateway appliance for running the agents of the cloud service that communicate with the cloud service and the upgraded VIM server appliance.

Abstract: Described herein are systems, methods, and software to manage the migration of workloads from a first computing system to a second computing system. In one implementation, the first computing system identifies a request to migrate one or more workloads to a second computing system. In response to the request, the first computing system disables one or more services and disables all but one network interface on the first computing system. The first computing system then communicates configuration information to the second computing system and monitors for a cancel notification from the second computing system using the remining network interface. After receiving the cancel notification, the first computing system enables the other network interfaces may initiate the one or more services.

Abstract: A method of reserving hardware resources for management appliances of a software-defined data center (SDDC) that have been deployed onto one or more hosts of a cluster of hosts, includes reserving hardware resources of the cluster for a resource pool that has been created for the management appliances, the hardware resources including at least processor resources of the hosts and memory resources of the hosts, and assigning the management appliances to the resource pool created for the management appliances. The management appliances share the hardware resources of the cluster with one or more other resource pools and, after the steps of reserving and assigning, are allocated at least the hardware resources that have been reserved for the resource pool created for the management appliances.

Abstract: A method of reserving hardware resources for management appliances of a software-defined data center (SDDC) that have been deployed onto one or more hosts of a cluster of hosts, includes reserving hardware resources of the cluster for a resource pool that has been created for the management appliances, the hardware resources including at least processor resources of the hosts and memory resources of the hosts, and assigning the management appliances to the resource pool created for the management appliances. The management appliances share the hardware resources of the cluster with one or more other resource pools and, after the steps of reserving and assigning, are allocated at least the hardware resources that have been reserved for the resource pool created for the management appliances.

Abstract: A method of upgrading a VIM server appliance includes: creating a snapshot of logical volumes mapped to physical volumes that store configuration and database files of virtual infrastructure management (VIM) services provided by a first VIM server appliance to be upgraded; after the snapshot is created, expanding the configuration and database files to be compatible with a second VIM server appliance; replicating the logical volumes which have been modified as a result of expanding the configuration and database files, in the second VIM server appliance; after replication, performing a switchover of VIM services that are provided, from the first VIM server appliance to the second VIM server appliance; and upon failure of any of the steps of expanding, replicating, and performing the switchover, aborting the upgrade, and reverting to a version of the configuration and database files that was preserved by creating the snapshot.

Abstract: A method of managing lifecycle of agents of cloud services running in a customer environment according to a desired state of the agents includes comparing a running state of the agents against the desired state. Upon determining that the running state includes a first agent that is not present in the desired state, the first agent is removed. Upon determining that the desired state includes a second agent that is not present in the running state, the second agent is deployed. Upon determining that there is a drift in the running state of a third agent from the desired state of the third agent, the third agent of the desired state is deployed while the third agent of the running state continues execution. The third agent of the running state is removed after the third agent of the desired state executes without errors for a period of time.

Abstract: A method of managing configurations of a plurality of data centers that are each managed by one or more management servers, includes the steps of: in response to a change made to the configurations of one of the data centers, updating a desired state document that specifies a desired state of each of the data centers, the updated desired state document including the change; and instructing each of the data centers to update the configurations thereof according to the desired state specified in the updated desired state document. The management servers include a virtual infrastructure management server and a virtual network management server and the configurations include configurations of software running in the virtual infrastructure management server and the virtual network management server, and configurations of the data center managed by the virtual infrastructure management server and the virtual network management server.

Abstract: Methods, apparatus, systems, and articles of manufacture are disclosed for high availability (HA) application migration in a virtualized environment. An example apparatus includes at least one memory, instructions in the apparatus, and processor circuitry to at least one of execute or instantiate the instructions to identify an HA slot in a virtual server rack, the HA slot to facilitate a failover of an application executing on a first virtual machine (VM) in the virtual server rack, the first VM identified as a protected VM, deploy a second VM in the HA slot, transfer data from the first VM to the second VM, and, in response to not identifying a failure of at least one of the first or second VMs during the transfer, trigger a shutdown of the first VM, and synchronize migration data associated with the virtual server rack to identify the second VM as the protected VM.

Abstract: A method of upgrading an application in a software-defined data center (SDDC) includes: deploying, by lifecycle management software executing in the SDDC, a second appliance, a first appliance executing services of the application at a first version, the second appliance having services of the application at a second version, the services in the first appliance being active and the services in the second appliance being inactive; expanding, by the lifecycle management software, state of the first appliance to support both the services at the first version and the services at the second version; replicating, by the lifecycle management software, the state of the first appliance to the second appliance; performing, by the lifecycle management software, a switchover to stop the services of the first appliance and start the services of the second appliance; and contracting, by the lifecycle management software, state of the second appliance to remove a portion unused by the services at the second version.