Reduced downtime during upgrade of an application hosted in a data center

A non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions to be executed in a computing device to cause the computing device to perform a method of upgrading an application in a software-defined data center (SDDC), comprising:

• performing an in-place upgrade of a lifecycle management software executing in the SDDC from a first version to a second version;
• deploying, by the lifecycle management software, a second appliance, wherein a first appliance executes services of the application at a first version of the application, wherein the second appliance executes services of the application at a second version of the application, and wherein the services of the application in the first appliance are active and the services of the application in the second appliance are inactive;
• expanding, by the lifecycle management software, a state of the first appliance to support both the services of the application at the first version of the application and the services of the application at the second version of the application;
• 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 application in the first appliance and to start the services of the application in the second appliance;
• and
• contracting, by the lifecycle management software, a state of the second appliance to remove a portion unused by the services of the application at the second version of the application.

A virtualized computing system, comprising:

• at least one host having a hardware platform;
• and
• a software platform executing on the hardware platform, the software platform including a lifecycle management software configured to upgrade an application executing in a software-defined data center (SDDC), the lifecycle management software configured to:
• perform an in-place upgrade of the lifecycle management software from a first version to a second version;
• deploy a second appliance, wherein a first appliance executes services of the application at a first version of the application, wherein the second appliance executes services of the application at a second version of the application, and wherein the services of the application in the first appliance are active and the services of the application in the second appliance are inactive;
• expand a state of the first appliance to support both the services of the application at the first version of the application and the services of the application at the second version of the application;
• replicate the state of the first appliance to the second appliance;
• perform a switchover to stop the services of the application in the first appliance and to start the services of the application in the second appliance;
• and
• contract a state of the second appliance to remove a portion unused by the services of the application at the second version of the application.