Updating a hyperconverged cluster can sometimes be time-consuming and present certain risks of production interruption if the process is poorly managed.

Nutanix has optimized the process of updating its clusters so that it is as simple and automated as possible, the famous “1-click upgrade”.

Life Cycle Manager on Prism Element

LCM has slight differences between Prism Element and Prism Central. This is what the interface looks like on Prism Element:

LCM on Prism Element allows you to manage updates to some of the bricks in your cluster:

  • AHV
  • AOS
  • Cluster Maintenance Utilities
  • File
    Flow
  • Foundation
  • Licensing
  • NCC

These are the bricks that you can update through Prism Element.

Life Cycle Manager on Prism Central

LCM on Prism Central allows you to manage the updating of the remaining bricks which are mainly the software bricks:

Life Cycle Manager: inventory

The LCM Inventory, whether on Prism Element or Prism Central, allows you to list all the software and hardware versions installed on your cluster, as well as any updates or firmware available:

The inventory process lasts around ten minutes:

It then allows access to all installed and available versions:

LCM: the recommended update order

With the multitude of software bricks and the hardware part, it is not always easy to know in what order to update the different modules.

The first step of updating your cluster takes place on Prism Central:

The actions to be carried out in order:

  • LCM inventory
  • NCC Check and Upgrade
  • Prism Central Upgrade

You must then switch to Prism Element for the second step:

The actions to be carried out in order:

  • LCM inventory
  • NCC Check and Upgrade
  • Foundation Upgrade
  • AOS Upgrade
  • Firmware Upgrade
  • AHV Upgrade

It is recommended to do another LCM inventory once the AHV update is complete to verify that there are no hardware updates remaining to be applied.

Finally comes the last step, again on Prism Central:

The actions to be carried out in order:

  • LCM inventory
  • All software updates (Nutanix Files, Self-Services (Calm), NKE (Karbon), NDB, Flow…)

To carry out the desired updates, simply check them then click on “View upgrade plan”:

Once the update plan has been developed by LCM, you must click one last time to start the process:

Each step of the process requires time because the cluster multiplies checks at each step to verify the conformity of the installed updates:

It is important to specify that the cluster update process, with the exception of certain software bricks, does not cause a service shutdown if good practices are respected regarding fault tolerance.

Official Nutanix documentation

Official documentation: https://portal.nutanix.com/page/documents/details?targetId=Acropolis-Upgrade-Guide-v6_5:upg-upgrade-recommended-order-t.html