Nutanix One-click Upgrade Vs LCM Upgrade

Upgrading your Nutanix cluster is easier than ever with Nutanix’s One-Click Upgrade and LCM (Life Cycle Manager) feature. But what’s the real difference between them? In this detailed guide, I’ll walk you through how each upgrade method works for AOS, AHV, VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, NCC, Firmware upgrades etc.

You’ll also learn how to check Nutanix compatibility matrices, download the latest LCM packages, and follow a safe upgrade path that ensures zero downtime and full compatibility. Whether you’re managing a small lab cluster or a large enterprise Nutanix environment, this post will help you choose the right upgrade approach and perform it confidently.

If you’ve been managing Nutanix clusters for a while, you already know how powerful and flexible the platform is. But keeping it up-to-date with latest patches and versions can sometimes feel complex — especially when it involves multiple components like Nutanix AOS, AHV, ESXi, Hyper-V Hypervisor and server hardware firmware.

Before moving to upgrade main feature let’s understand the Nutanix Best practice for Nutanix Upgrade Path / Procedure as mentioned in detailed below:

Best Practice for Nutanix Upgrade Path or Procedure

Before jumping into Nutanix upgrade section, it’s essential to follow a proper Nutanix upgrade path. This ensures you don’t break compatibility between your cluster components i.e AOS, Hypervisors and firmware’s.

Here’s a simplified Nutanix upgrade sequence, I recommend as per best practice and have been following for past many years.

Follow below recommended step by step upgrading sequence / path – Remember Don’t skip or break it.

1. Check Compatibility Matrix – Always verify if your hardware, hypervisor, and AOS versions are compatible.
2. Upgrade NCC (Nutanix Cluster Check) – Run pre-checks to identify potential issues.
3. Upgrade LCM Framework: Upgrade LCM framework to latest version before any following upgrades
4. Upgrade AOS (Acropolis Operating System) – This is the Nutanix brain managing your cluster.
5. Upgrade Hypervisor (AHV, ESXi, Hyper-v) – Keep the virtualization layer updated.
6. Upgrade Foundation (if applicable) – Used for imaging or deployment.
7. Upgrade Firmware and BIOS (through LCM) – Keeps hardware drivers, BMC, and storage controllers healthy.
8. Perform Post-upgrade Validation – Re-run NCC and check cluster health in Prism.

Recommendation: Always perform upgrades during maintenance windows (prefer Weekends) and ensure Nutanix Cluster health is good and all VMs are backed up or replicated. You can use Nutanix Data Protection or Nutanix third-party backup solutions before initiating upgrades.

Nutanix Upgrade Compatibility Matrix

Nutanix Compatibility Matrix is your best friend before every upgrade. It ensures that your target versions of Nutanix AOS, AHV/ESXi, NCC, and Foundation are supported as software stack to work together.

Check compatibility here: Nutanix Software & Hardware Compatibility and Interoperability Matrix

Why Compatibility Matters?

Imagine you upgrade AOS to 6.8 to any other version but your AHV or ESXi version is too old / higher — your cluster might still run, but you’ll risk cluster instability, unexpected crashes or unsupported configurations and entire production may go down. I am highly recommend – always double-check compatibility before proceeding.

Nutanix Upgrade Built-in Options in Prism

If you are Nutanix administrator and want to upgrade your Nutanix environment, you have two smart and efficient options:

1. Nutanix One-Click Upgrade and
2. Nutanix LCM (Life Cycle Manager) Upgrade

Both are designed to simplify the upgrade process while ensuring zero downtime and maximum stability across your cluster. However, both have different purpose to use it. I will explain in detail below.

Nutanix makes upgrades simpler with two main upgrade options:

1. Nutanix One-Click Upgrade: It is native built-in directly into Prism. It allows you to upgrade hypervisors like VMware ESXi and Hyper-V. It performs automatic pre-checks, validates cluster health, and executes rolling upgrades without affecting running workloads — making it perfect for quick, guided updates

2. Nutanix LCM (Life Cycle Manager) Upgrade: It’s a centralized cluster-wide upgrade tool that updates software components like AOS, AHV, and NCC, but also handles hardware firmware upgrades. LCM intelligently scans your cluster inventory, checks compatibility, downloads necessary bundles, and applies updates in the correct sequence.

In this blog, I’ll break down what these two methods mean, when to use which, and how you can safely upgrade every layer of your Nutanix environment — from software to firmware — without any disruption.

Together, these two Nutanix cluster upgrade options offer complete flexibility, quick upgrade through Prism full-stack update with LCM. Nutanix ensures your environment stays secure, optimized, and always running the latest versions.

Let’s start with understanding the overall upgrade journey.

(1) Nutanix One-Click Upgrade

Upgrading your Nutanix cluster doesn’t have to be stressful — especially with the One-Click Upgrade feature. It’s designed so you can upgrade other OEM hypervisors (VMware ESXi or Hyper-V) in just a few guided steps.

Important: Initially Nutanix 1-click Upgrade was designed for all upgrades like AOS, File Server, Hypervisors, NCC and Foundation. But after launching Nutanix LCM upgrade feature, almost all software and firmware upgrades shifted to LCM upgrade except File Server and Hypervisor.

Let’s go through in simple steps to Upgrade / patch the VMware ESXi or Hyper-v Hypervisor as mentioned below:

Upgrade VMware ESXi or Microsoft Hyper-V

For clusters running ESXi or Hyper-V, the upgrade process is just as straightforward:

1. Login to Prism > Go to Settings > Upgrade Software > Hypervisor.
2. Upload your compatible ESXi or Hyper-V image (you can download hypervisor bundle from the Microsoft Portal and Broadcom portal.
3. Upload VMware ESXi depot.zip bundle or Microsoft Hyper-V ISO bundle
4. Run Pre-Checks to confirm compatibility and cluster readiness.
5. Click Upgrade — the system will gracefully migrate VMs off each host, patch it, and then bring it back online automatically.
6. Post 100% upgrading / patching completion run Inventory from LCM to reflect installed version
   Prism > LCM > Inventory > Run inventory

Read detailed Step to step guide on Hypervisor upgrade on Nutanix cluster

That’s it! The One-Click Upgrade takes care of the entire sequence and let Prism handle the rest. It will automatically upgrade each Nutanix Node one by one, ensuring no downtime for your running workloads.

Recommendation: Nutanix One-click Upgrade feature is highly recommended for Third-party OEM Hypervisors upgrades and patches installation like VMware ESXi and Microsoft Hyper-V.

However, for Nutanix AHV always use Nutanix LCM upgrade feature only.!

(2) Nutanix LCM (Life Cycle Manager) Upgrade

Nutanix Life Cycle Manager (LCM) is Nutanix’s automated tool designed to simplify the upgrade and update process for various cluster components. It checks available versions, downloads packages, and executes upgrades with minimal user intervention.

How LCM Works

Following is high level view how Nutanix LCM works on Nutanix cluster through Prism & Prism Central.

1. Inventory Scan: LCM scans your cluster to identify all upgradeable components (AOS, AHV, BIOS, BMC, drives, etc.).
2. Download Updates: It connects to the Nutanix portal or your local repository to fetch compatible updates.
3. Pre-Check Validation: It automatically verifies that your cluster is healthy and ready for upgrade.
4. Execution: LCM performs the upgrade, one node at a time, ensuring no VM downtime.
5. Verification: It validates that each component upgraded successfully.

Read detailed article on How Nutanix LCM Life Cycle Management Framework Works ?

Nutanix LCM framework is particularly designed for Nutanix software ecosystem i.e AOS, AHV, BIOS, BMC, drives and server hardware firmware updates — tasks that are traditionally complex in manual environments.

Read How you can set up or install on-prem Nutanix LCM framework on Linux server

(2A)# Nutanix LCM: Simplifying Upgrades for AOS, AHV, NCC and Firmware

Keeping your Nutanix cluster healthy, secure, and up-to-date has never been easier, thanks to Nutanix LCM (Life Cycle Manager) an intelligent, one-stop tool that automates and simplifies the entire upgrade process for your Nutanix environment.

LCM upgrade feature support upgrades for AOS (Acropolis Operating System), AHV (Acropolis Hypervisor), NCC (Nutanix Cluster Check), or even all supported vendor hardware firmware, LCM ensures everything stays compatible and runs smoothly with zero downtime for running workload.

Let’s break it down further:

• Nutanix AOS Upgrade ensures your core Nutanix operating system benefits from the latest features, performance improvements, and stability fixes.
• Nutanix AHV Upgrade keeps your hypervisor optimized for VM performance, security, and new hardware compatibility.
• Nutanix NCC Upgrade ensures cluster health checks and diagnostics current, helping identify issues before they affect workloads.
• Nutanix Firmware Upgrade maintains your hardware reliability, ensuring BIOS, BMC, and disk controllers are running the latest stable firmware.

Recommendation: Always use Nutanix LCM Upgrade feature for AOS, AHV, NCC and firmware updates, patches and upgrades because it checks all compatibility matrix before any upgrade and notify if there is any issue or incompatibility issue among software versions.

(2.1)# Download Nutanix Compatible Software Bundles

Before performing any Nutanix upgrade, you must download the compatible software bundles for your cluster. These bundles ensure that LCM (Life Cycle Manager), AOS, AHV, NCC, and firmware are aligned with your cluster hardware and current software versions.

If your Nutanix AHV cluster is connected with internet, it automatically shows available software bundle that can be downloaded with single click. Later can be upgraded through LCM upgrade framework.

For Dark-sites (No internet) – Manually download All Nutanix Software Bundles directly from below direct Download links:

• Download Nutanix LCM Bundle
• Download Nutanix AOS Bundle
• Download Nutanix AHV Hypervisor Bundle
• Download Nutanix Foundation Bundle
• Download Nutanix NCC Bundle
• Download other software Bundles here

After downloading all above required software bundles proceed for step-to-step upgrade as mentioned below:

(2.2)# Upgrade Nutanix AOS, AHV, NCC and Firmware

Now follow same recommended Nutanix upgrade path or sequence as described above:

Step 1: Upload all download software bundles through LCM
Nutanix Prism > LCM > Direct Uploads > click on Upload Bundle

Step 2: Run Inventory to validate uploaded software compatibility
Nutanix Prism > LCM > Inventory > Run Inventory

Note: If LCM software bundle is uploaded successfully, then LCM framework will be automatically updated. No need to update separately.

After run inventory process completion, it will show all uploaded software in Updates section.

It is possible and happens many time that LCM Inventory may encounter upgrade failure errors but don’t worry that can be fixed here: Nutanix Foundation: Amazing Fixes for LCM Upgrade Failures

Step 3: Now start upgrading Nutanix Software and firmware
Prism > LCM > Updates > Select Updates > click on View Upgrade Plan > click Upgrade

Step 4: Now let’s update the uploaded software in following sequence [high level].

Sequence 1# Nutanix NCC Upgrade

NCC (Nutanix Cluster Check) is a diagnostic tool that validates your cluster’s health before and after upgrades.

Steps to Upgrade Nutanix NCC

1. Login to Prism Element.
2. Go to LCM > Updates > Select NCC Updates
3. Run Pre-Check #Fix any issues if pop-up
4. Click Upgrade NCC.
5. Verify version under Inventory Details > NCC Version.

Sequence 2# Nutanix AOS Upgrade

AOS (Acropolis Operating System) is the heart of the Nutanix platform. It manages storage, cluster operations, and resiliency.

1. Prism > LCM > Updates > Select AOS Updates
2. Run Pre-Check #Fix any issues if pop-up
3. Click Upgrade AOS.
4. Verify version under Inventory Details > AOS Version.
5. Run Inventory to update the LCM Inventory to show updated AOS version

During the upgrade, each CVM (Controller VM) is updated one by one, ensuring cluster health remains green.

Sequence 3# Nutanix AHV Upgrade

Use Case 1: If you’re using Nutanix AHV (Acropolis Hypervisor), you can upgrade it directly through LCM Upgrade.
Use Case 2: If using other Hypervisor like VMware ESXi or Hyper-V always use One-click upgrade feature /option.

1. Prism > LCM > Updates > Select AHV Hypervisor Updates
2. Run Pre-Check #Fix any issues if pop-up
3. Click Upgrade Nutanix AHV Hypervisor.
4. Verify version under Inventory Details > AHV Version.
5. Run Inventory to update the LCM Inventory to show updated AHV version

LCM automates node-by-node upgrades, ensuring each host is evacuated before upgrading.

Sequence 4# Nutanix Firmware Upgrade

Firmware upgrades are essential to keep your physical hardware optimized and supported.

Firmware Components Updated by LCM:

• BIOS / BMC
• RAID Controller
• NIC / HBA
• SSD / HDD Firmware

Steps to Upgrade Hardware Firmware

1. Prism > LCM > Inventory > Firmware.
2. Review each hardware item’s upgrade availability.
3. Run Pre-Check and schedule the upgrade.
4. LCM will reboot nodes one at a time while ensuring VM migration to other nodes.
5. Verify version under Inventory Details > Firmware Version.
6. Run Inventory to update the LCM Inventory to show updated firmware version

LCM automatically detects hardware versions and compares them against the latest validated releases from Nutanix.

Quick Comparison

If you have any doubt so far. Just go through the quick comparison between Nutanix one-click upgrade Vs LCM Upgrade below:

Conclusion

If you’re managing Nutanix clusters, staying up-to-date is critical for performance, security, and stability.
While One-Click Upgrade is perfect for other OEM hypervisors like ESXi & Hyper-V quick upgrades, LCM gives you full control and automation for large-scale environments.

Personally, I use both One-click Upgrade and LCM Upgrade for production clusters because it handles hardware and firmware too.

Always remember:

• Verify the compatibility matrix before upgrading.
• Use NCC pre-checks to prevent surprises.
• Maintain backups and replication before upgrading.
• And finally, Nutanix’s design ensures zero downtime even during upgrades.

Frequently Ask Questions (F&Q)