Nutanix Cluster Software Upgrade Order – Best Practice

Before start Nutanix software / firmware upgrade, you must know the Nutanix software upgrade order / sequence best practice. It very important to follow the Nutanix software upgrade procedure best practice to upgrade the software in best order / sequence with any problem.

If you are planning to upgrade the Nutanix software e.i Prism Central, AOS, AHV, ESXi, Hyper-v, NCC, Foundation, LCM and firmware then you must follow the Nutanix software / firmware best practice.

Recommended Guidelines Before Upgrade

Before you begin the Nutanix software / firmware upgrade you should follow the recommended guidelines that would make your Nutanix software / firmware upgrade experience far better then ever.

1. Schedule Nutanix software / firmware maintenance windows
2. Perform upgrade in non-production hours
3. Check software compatibility matrix and software upgrade path
4. If possible perform Nutanix software / firmware upgrade on non-production site like Disaster recovery to monitor the impact.
5. Always prefer to upgrade LTS version of AOS in critical production environment
6. Always perform upgrade Pre-check Test before upgrading the software
7. last not the least – Always follow the Nutanix software / firmware upgrade order / sequence best practice as mentioned below.

Note: It is recommended to upgrade the required software first then upgrade hardware firmware.

Nutanix Software / Firmware Upgrade Order

First of all, it is recommended to upgrade the Nutanix software like Prism Central, Foundation, Nutanix NCC and LCM etc. then proceed to upgrade any firmware in the Nutanix cluster.

Let know the what is best practice order / sequence to upgrade the Nutanix software and firmware.

• Prism Central (PC ) – Upgrade the Prism central to the latest or N-1 version as per your organization upgrade policy. in my opinion, you should go to N-1.
  
  • 1 NCC upgrade – as per Nutanix recommendation Upgrade NCC to the latest version.
    
  • 2 Prism Central – Now you can upgrade the Prism Central appliance to the latest or N-1 version.

• Prism Element ( PE ) – In the second step, now you can upgrade the Nutanix Prism Element cluster software in the following order / sequence:

1. NCC – Upgrade NCC to the latest availabe version And run NCC check.
2. Foundation – Upgrade to the latest available version
3. LCM – Upgrade to the latest available version And perform an LCM inventory.
4. AOS – Upgrade to the latest AOS LTS version And run NCC check
5. LCM – Post upgraded AOS. Upgrade LCM again if any new LCM version available in suggestion, if not skip this step And again perform an LCM inventory
6. Firmware – Upgrade to latest available version or as recommended by LCM framwork:
   
   1. SATADOM
   2. BMC
   3. BIOS
   4. HBA
   5. Disk
   6. other – Upgrade all other firmware as recommended by LCM Framwork
      
7. Hypervisor – Included ( AHV, VMware ESXi and Hyper-v ) Upgrade as per AOS compatible version only.

Post upgrade – it is recommended to run the NCC health check to cross-check the cluster health.

Nutanix Witness VM – Upgrade to latest available version – You can upgrade Witness VM any time, it does not have any dependency on Nutanix software or hardware.

If you are running Nutanix cluster at dark site then you can deploy LCM dark site server to upgrade the software and firmware without using internet connectivity on Nutanix.

Read more – Know how to deploy Nutanix LCM dark site server

Conclusion

Nutanix software and firmware can be done online and offline ( dark site ) as well by Nutanix recommended tool known as LCM framework.

I hope, You will be champ today in Nutanix software and firmware upgrade.

Thanks to being with HyperHCI Tech Blog to learn something new – something different.