Horizon View

VMware Unified Access Gateway UAG 3.10 Upgrade

With the release of VMware Horizon 8 aka 2006, many are no doubt revisiting their Horizon infrastructure looking at updates across the board. We just recently took a look at the VMware Horizon 8 Upgrade of the Connection Server. What about your Unified Access Gateway (UAG) appliances? For VMware Horizon 8 2006, the Unifed Access Gateway (UAG) 3.10 appliance is listed along with Horizon 8. How can you easily go about upgrading these in production? In this post we will take a look at VMware Unified Access Gateway UAG 3.10 upgrade and see the process for upgrading your forward facing appliances with the latest and greatest version.

VMware Unified Access Gateway 3.10 New Features

There are quite a few new features to list and mention in the Unified Access Gateway 3.10 release. Be sure to check out the official release notes for the 3.10 release found here:

Unified Access Gateway Upgrade with Zero Downtime

There is a way with a built-in mechanism from VMware in the UAG appliance that you can perform an upgrade with zero downtime. VMware has a built-in mechanism in the Unified Access Gateway to present the status of the appliance as either being good for use or in a mode that is unavailable for service.

The mode is called Quiesce Mode. This is a simple toggle button that is found under the System Configuration of your Unified Access Gateway that sets the status of a resource URL so that Load Balancers can accurately recognize the availability of the appliance.

Sitting behind a load balancer, you can then set the health check for the load balancer to this resource URL so that any new requests that come into the load balancer destined to this UAG appliance will be sent to another UAG appliance. In this way, you can effectively take the UAGs in and out of service. What are the prerequisites for this operation?

  • You need at least 2 Unified Access Gateway appliances configured behind a load balancer
  • You need to configure your Load Balancer health check URL for the appliances to the specialized health check URL controlled by the Quiesce Mode toggle.
  • The URL to configure for the health check is a GET request to the URL: “https://mycoUnifiedAccessGateway.com:443/favicon.ico”.
  • It is important to understand this is the only URL that is supported by VMware to be used as a valid health check URL for determining the state of your UAG appliance.

VMware Unified Access Gateway UAG 3.10 Upgrade

Let’s now take a look at how you can perform the upgrade on your VMware Unified Access Gateway to a new Unified Access Gateway 3.10 appliance. First things first, login to your appliance that you want to upgrade, and navigate to System Configuration > Quiesce Mode. Toggle the flag to Yes.

Setting-the-Quiesce-mode-to-on-in-the-system-configuration
Setting the Quiesce mode to on in the system configuration

Next, while you are still in the System Configuration area, under Support Settings, export the configuration settings in the JSON format.

Export-your-Unified-Access-Gateway-Settings
Export your Unified Access Gateway Settings

Download the Unified Access Gateway (UAG) 3.10 appliance. As you can see here from the screenshot, it is 2.98 GB.

Download-the-new-Unified-Access-Gateway-3.10-appliance
Download the new Unified Access Gateway 3.10 appliance

Now that you have the appliance, there is a really great tool that is available as a VMware Fling called the Unified Access Gateway Appliance Installer. You can check out the details here:

Below, I am using the utility to deploy the new Unified Access Gateway 3.10 appliance that I have downloaded. It makes this process super simple.

Unified-Access-Gateway-Appliance-Installer
Unified Access Gateway Appliance Installer

Getting started with the installer. It looks remarkably similar to the vCenter Server installer.

Getting-ready-to-deploy-a-new-UAG-3.10-appliance-with-the-UAG-appliance-installer
Getting ready to deploy a new UAG 3.10 appliance with the UAG appliance installer
Accept-the-EULA-for-the-UAG-Appliance-installer
Accept the EULA for the UAG Appliance installer

Here, you connect the utility to the deployment target for deploying the Unified Access Gateway appliance. This can be your vCenter Server or the ESXi host you want to target.

Appliance-deployment-target
Appliance deployment target

Accept the certificate warning.

Accept-the-certificate-warning
Accept the certificate warning

Choose your datacenter or VM folder.

Select-the-datacenter-to-deploy-the-new-Unified-Access-Gateway-3.10-appliance
Select the datacenter to deploy the new Unified Access Gateway 3.10 appliance

Choose the compute resource for deploying the Unified Access Gateway appliance.

Select-the-computer-resource
Select the computer resource

Choose the OVA appliance file that you downloaded for the Unified Access Gateway 3.10 appliance. Also, configure the root and admin passwords.

Setup-the-Unified-Access-Gateway-appliance-VM-including-passwords
Setup the Unified Access Gateway appliance VM including passwords

You can choose between the Standard size and the Large size for the appliance virtual resources configured.

Select-the-Unified-Access-Gateway-deployment-size
Select the Unified Access Gateway deployment size

Configure the network settings. This includes choosing the port group, number of NICs, and also the network address configuration for the appliance.

Configure-the-network-settings-for-the-new-Unified-Access-Gateway-3.10-appliance
Configure the network settings for the new Unified Access Gateway 3.10 appliance

Decide whether or not you want to join the CEIP program.

Choose-whether-you-will-join-the-CEIP-program
Choose whether you will join the CEIP program

The appliance is ready to deploy. You can also optionally Save settings as a .INI file for future PowerShell use.

Ready-to-finalize-the-deployment-using-the-UAG-appliance-installer-of-the-Unified-Access-Gateway-3.10-appliance
Ready to finalize the deployment using the UAG appliance installer of the Unified Access Gateway 3.10 appliance

The appliance deployment shouldn’t take too long. It should finish successfully.

Deployment-completes-successfully-for-the-Unified-Access-Gateway-3.10-appliance
Deployment completes successfully for the Unified Access Gateway 3.10 appliance

The deployment utility will automatically power on the appliance. Login to the web interface of your new Unified Access Gateway 3.10 appliance.

Login-to-the-new-UAG-3.10-appliance
Login to the new UAG 3.10 appliance

Choose to Import Settings > Select.

Import-the-JSON-file-backup-that-you-took-of-your-other-appliance
Import the JSON file backup that you took of your other appliance

Browse to and select the JSON file that you downloaded from the export process of your older appliance. If you had RADIUS configured, you will need to reenter your shared secret password. Once you are ready, click the Import button.

Choose-the-JSON-file-and-enter-your-RADIUS-shared-secret
Choose the JSON file and enter your RADIUS shared secret

Now that your settings are imported, you can give these a once over and make sure everything looks correct and you have no “red” bubbles on your Horizon configuration. Finally, the settings you exported will restore to the new appliance with Quiesce mode enabled. Once you verify everything, you can now disable the Quiesce Mode so the appliance will be back in operation.

Turn-off-Quiesce-Mode-on-your-new-Unified-Access-Gateway-3.10-appliance
Turn off Quiesce Mode on your new Unified Access Gateway 3.10 appliance

Final Thoughts

VMware Horizon 8 2006 is the most powerful Horizon release to date. VMware is certainly pushing the envelope even further with the newest Horizon version.

Organizations are certainly going to be looking at upgrading their existing Horizon environments to take advantage of the new features and capabilities.

The Unified Access Gateway Upgrade can easily be accomplished with the readily available tools that are built into the solution as well as the Unified Access Gateway installer. As shown, the process to backup your appliance, quiesce activity and deploy a new appliance is fairly straightforward and easy.

Read my other VMware Horizon 8 posts here:

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Brandon Lee

Brandon Lee is the Senior Writer, Engineer and owner at Virtualizationhowto.com and has over two decades of experience in Information Technology. Having worked for numerous Fortune 500 companies as well as in various industries, Brandon has extensive experience in various IT segments and is a strong advocate for open source technologies. Brandon holds many industry certifications, loves the outdoors and spending time with family.

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