In a method for managing an upgrade of a virtualization infrastructure component, a plurality of metadata manifests corresponding to a plurality of software upgrade bundles is received, a software upgrade bundle for upgrading a virtualization infrastructure component from a source version to a target version, a metadata manifest comprising a listing of applications comprised within a corresponding software upgrade bundle and installation instructions for the applications comprised within the corresponding software upgrade bundle for upgrading the virtualization infrastructure component from a particular source version to a particular target version. A directed acyclic graph of available upgrade paths for the virtualization infrastructure component is populated based on the plurality of metadata manifests, wherein nodes identify the source versions and the target versions and edges identify the software upgrade bundle for upgrading the virtualization infrastructure component from the particular source version to the particular target version identified by the corresponding software upgrade bundle.