vSphere Update Manager
VUM is a tool designed to help VMware administrators automate and streamline the process of applying updates—patches or upgrades—to their vSphere environment. VUM is fully integrated with vCenter Server and offers the ability to scan and remediate ESXi hosts, host extensions (such as EMC's PowerPath/VE Multipathing software), older ESXi hosts (6.0 and 6.5), and some virtual appliances. Further, with VUM, administrators can upgrade VMware Tools and virtual machine (VM) hardware.
VUM integrates tightly with vSphere's inherent cluster features. It can use the Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) for nondisruptive updating of ESXi hosts by moving its VMs between hosts in the cluster and avoiding downtime. It can coordinate with the cluster's Distributed Power Management (DPM), High Availability (HA), and Fault Tolerance (FT) settings to ensure that they don't prevent VUM from updating at any stage. Introduced in vSphere 5, the cluster...