Updating and patching your vSphere environment is part of a periodic maintenance routine. Although the update/upgrade/patching can be done manually, it becomes a tedious process when dealing with a large environment. vSphere Update Manager (VUM) provides a method to manage patching and the upgrade process with ease. It can not only be used to upgrade/patch your ESXi host, but also third-party products such as the Cisco Nexus 1000v.
In this chapter, we will learn how to install and configure VUM and also how to use it to perform patching and upgrading tasks.