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Dell EMC Configuration and Deployment Guide

Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Upgrade on DELL EMC XC Series Hyper-Converged Appliance

Abstract

This document outlines the step-by-step procedure to perform 1-Click

upgrade of Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V to Microsoft

Windows Server 2016 running on DELL EMC XC Series.

July 2018

Revisions

2 Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Upgrade on DELL EMC XC Series Hyper-Converged Appliance | 000041

Revisions

Date Description

July 2018 Initial release

Acknowledgements

This paper was produced by the following members of the Dell EMC Open HCI engineering team:

Author: Mubashir Afzal Mir

The information in this publication is provided “as is.” Dell Inc. makes no representations or warranties of any kind with respect to the information in this

publication, and specifically disclaims implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Use, copying, and distribution of any software described in this publication requires an applicable software license.

© 2018 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. All Rights Reserved. Dell, EMC, Dell EMC and other trademarks are trademarks of Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. Other

trademarks may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Dell believes the information in this document is accurate as of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice.

Table of contents


Table of contents

Revisions............................................................................................................................................................................. 2

Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................................................. 2

Table of contents ................................................................................................................................................................ 3

Executive summary ............................................................................................................................................................. 4

1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................................................... 5

1.1 Audience ............................................................................................................................................................. 5

1.2 Approach ............................................................................................................................................................ 5

1.3 Terminology ........................................................................................................................................................ 6

1.4 Assumptions ....................................................................................................................................................... 6

2 Product/technology overview ....................................................................................................................................... 7

2.1 Dell EMC XC Series Hyper-Converged Appliance architectural overview ......................................................... 7

2.2 Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V on XC Series .................................................................................... 8

3 Hyper-V upgrade ........................................................................................................................................................ 10

3.1 Upgrade overview ............................................................................................................................................. 10

3.2 Best practices ................................................................................................................................................... 10

4 Upgrade procedure .................................................................................................................................................... 12

4.1 Prerequisites ..................................................................................................................................................... 12

4.2 Software downloads ......................................................................................................................................... 12

4.3 Upgrade guidelines ........................................................................................................................................... 13

4.3.1 Updating system firmware ................................................................................................................................ 13

4.3.2 Upgrading Nutanix AOS ................................................................................................................................... 19

4.3.3 Microsoft Windows Server 2016 upgrade guidelines ....................................................................................... 32

A Appendix ..................................................................................................................................................................... 44

A.1 Deployment checklist ........................................................................................................................................ 44

A.2 Upgrading appliance firmware on Dell EMC XC Series 13th generation appliance ......................................... 45

A.3 Known issue ..................................................................................................................................................... 49

A.3.1 Symptoms ......................................................................................................................................................... 50

B Technical support and resources ............................................................................................................................... 52

B.1 Related resources............................................................................................................................................. 52

Executive summary


Executive summary

The Dell EMC XC Series family of hyper-converged appliances integrate our proven PowerEdge x86 server

platform and Nutanix software into purpose built enterprise-class solutions for virtualized environments.

Backed by Dell EMC’s Global Service and Support organization, these 1U and 2U appliances consolidate

storage, compute, networking, and virtualization into a turnkey platform enabling application and virtualization

teams to quickly and simply deploy new workloads. The XC Series, with pay-as-you-grow flexibility, is easily

expanded one node at a time for predictable scale-out expansion. By combining the hardware resources from

each server appliance into a shared-everything model for simplified operations, improved agility, and greater

flexibility, Dell EMC and Nutanix together deliver simple, cost-effective solutions for enterprise workloads.

Upgrading Microsoft Windows Server versions on the same hardware is a monotonous process and in past

considered highly unadvisable. In previous versions of Windows, it was necessary to build a new Hyper-V

server and migrate roles to the newly built server using live migration feature that was introduced in Windows

Server 2012 R2. The biggest operational challenge in an appliance that includes various technologies from

different providers is maintenance, regardless if it was a firmware, software, or hypervisor upgrade.

Dell EMC XC Series Hyper-Converged Appliance solves the reluctance to upgrade by enabling the “1-Click

Upgrade” feature in the Nutanix Prism Web console. The 1-Click Upgrade process is a non-disruptive

workflow that follows a rolling upgrade methodology through the cluster on a node-by-node basis.

The intent of this document is to provide detailed step-by-step instructions to successfully upgrade Dell EMC

XC Series Hyper-Converged Appliance running Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V to Microsoft

Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V without compromising the availability of the workload to end users.

Introduction


1 Introduction This document outlines the step-by-step approach to upgrade Dell EMC XC Series Hyper-Converged

Appliance running Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V to Window Server 2016 Hyper-V. This guide

provides the detailed steps on upgrading to and configuring Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V. The key topics

covered in this document are as below.

• New features of Dell EMC XC Series with Microsoft Windows Server 2016

• Overview of Dell EMC XC Series cluster powered by Nutanix and benefits of using 1-Click Upgrade

• 1-Click Hyper-V upgrade procedure

- Prerequisites for upgrading to Dell EMC XC Series to Windows Server 2016

- Deployment approach and Checklist

- Deployment steps for upgrading different components of the platform

- Post upgrade validation steps

• Best practices for upgrading Dell EMC XC Series Hyper-Converged Appliance with Microsoft

Windows Server 2012 R2 to Microsoft Windows Server 2016

1.1 Audience This document is intended for decision makers, managers, architects, Hyper-V administrators, Hyper-

converged infrastructure administrators, and technical administrators of IT environments that are responsible

for performing the Hyper-V upgrade.

The reader of this document must be aware of Dell EMC XC Series, Nutanix AOS, Microsoft Hyper-V

technologies, and have a basic familiarity with storage, compute, and network technologies.

NOTE: If you have questions regarding this approach at any time during planning or execution of the upgrade,

contact Technical Support as outlined in your Services contract.

1.2 Approach Dell EMC XC Series Hyper-Converged Appliance consists of multiple technologies that includes the

hardware, firmware, Nutanix AOS, and the hypervisor.

As the upgrade process involves multiple technologies. You must ensure that each technology is compatible

with Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V. This document covers the entire upgrade procedure in

following phases.

Upgrade procedure phases

Phase Description

Updating system firmware

Upgrade the base system firmware to the minimum version required to deploy Microsoft Windows Server 2016

Upgrading Nutanix AOS

Upgrade Nutanix AOS to the minimum version that is required for deploying Microsoft Windows Server 2016

Microsoft Windows Server 2016 upgrade guidelines

Upgrade Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V to Windows Server 2016

Introduction


Depending on the present state of the infrastructure, you may or may not need to follow all the phases of the

deployment. Review the prerequisite section of each phase to decide on deployment approach.

1.3 Terminology The following table lists the terminology and acronyms used throughout this document.

Terminology list

Term Description

VM Virtual Machine

CVM Controller Virtual Machine

DSF Distributed Storage Fabric

AOS Acropolis Operating System

HCI Hyper-Converged Infrastructure

SSD Solid State Drive

HDD Hard Disk Drive

RF Replication Factor

OS Operating System

VMQ Virtual Machine Queues feature introduced in Windows Server 2012

APIPA Automatic Private IP Addressing

1.4 Assumptions This guide is built with the following assumptions about the engineer performing the upgrade:

• Has access to the Nutanix portal at https://portal.nutanix.com.

• Has read and understood Dell EMC XC Series Architecture, for additional information refer to

Architectural Overview of XC Series Hyper-Converged Infrastructure.

• Has read and understood the Nutanix AOS architecture, for additional information refer to Nutanix

Bible.

• Has a working knowledge to manage, and update Dell EMC XC Series.

• Has a working knowledge of Nutanix AOS and using the Prism Web Console.

• Has working knowledge to deploy, manage, and update Microsoft Hyper-V.

• That your existing infrastructure is running smoothly without any errors or issues.

• That your deployment is planned in such a way that at any given point the deployed cluster can

sustain the removal of a node from the cluster and the workload remains up and running without

compromising the performance.

• Has proactively gained access to appliances and has the credentials with appropriate permissions to

perform the upgrade.

https://portal.nutanix.com/

https://delltechnologiesworldonline.com/2017/connect/fileDownload/session/70A950EE42086D15B4B860881D69F3E2/cpsd.16%20final.pdf

http://nutanixbible.com/


Product/technology overview


2 Product/technology overview

2.1 Dell EMC XC Series Hyper-Converged Appliance architectural

overview Dell EMC XC Series Hyper-Converged Appliances come with the proven Dell EMC PowerEdge server

platform and incorporate many of the advanced software technologies that power leading web-scale and

cloud infrastructures.

Dell EMC XC Series Hyper-Converged Appliance is a scalable cluster of high performance appliances, each

running a standard hypervisor combining processors, memory, local storage consisting of solid state drives

(SSD) for performance and high capacity hard disk drives (HDD) in hybrid mode or all flash. Each appliance

hosts the virtual machines just like a standard hypervisor as shown below.

Standard hypervisor.

Dell EMC XC Series Hyper-Converged Appliances use DSF to share and present local storage to server

nodes within a cluster while creating a clustered volume namespace accessible to all nodes. Figure 2 shows

an overview of the Dell EMC XC Series architecture including user VMs, the Nutanix storage CVM, and its

local disk devices. Each CVM connects directly to the local storage controller and its associated disks. Using

local storage controllers on each host localizes access to data through the DSF, thereby reducing storage I/O

latency. The DSF replicates writes synchronously to at least one other XC Series node in the system by

default, distributing data throughout the cluster for resiliency and availability. Replication factor 2 (RF2)

creates two identical data copies in the cluster, and replication factor 3 (RF3) creates three identical data

copies.



Dell EMC XC Series architecture

DSF virtualizes local storage from all appliances into a unified pool. DSF uses local SSDs and capacity disks

from all appliances to store virtual machine data. Virtual machines running on the cluster write data to DSF as

if they were writing to local storage. Nutanix data locality ensures that the XC Series node providing CPU and

memory to a VM also provides its disk as well, thus minimizing IO that must cross the network. XC Series

supports multiple hypervisors and provides choice and flexibility to customer.

2.2 Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V on XC Series The Dell EMC XC Series Hyper-Converged Appliance running Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V enables you to

leverage on the improvements and new features that have been introduced with Windows Server 2016.

XC Series brings the HCI appliance benefits of flexibility, affordability, ease of scale, and a fully modern

architecture including cloud to Microsoft environments with flexible hardware options and simple

management.

High-level feature set of Microsoft Windows Server 2016



Microsoft Windows Server 2016 feature descriptions

Feature Description

Discrete device assignment (DDA)

This feature enables you to give a virtual machine direct and exclusive access to some PCIe hardware devices. Using a device in this way bypasses the hypervisor stack that results in faster access.

For more information about DDA click here.

Hot add or remove for network adapters and memory

You can now add or remove a network adapter while the virtual machine is running, without incurring downtime. Supported on Gen2 VMs only.

In addition, you can adjust the amount of memory assigned to a virtual machine while it is running, even if you have not enabled Dynamic Memory.

Nested Virtualization This feature lets you use a virtual machine as a Hyper-V host and create virtual machines within that virtualized host.

For more information click here.

Networking features Networking features include Remote direct memory access (RDMA), Virtual machine multi queues (VMMQ), and QoS.


Rolling Hyper-V cluster upgrade

This allows you to upgrade the cluster without downtime.


Virtual machine configuration version

The version represents the compatibility of the virtual machine's configuration, saved state, and snapshot files with the version of Hyper-V.


Virtual machine configuration file format

Virtual machine configuration files use a new format that makes reading and writing configuration data more efficient. The format also makes data corruption less likely if a storage failure occurs.

Customers running Dell EMC XC Series HCI with Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V are upgrading to

Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V to use the features that are introduced in 2016.

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/virtualization/2015/11/19/discrete-device-assignment-description-and-background/

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/hyper-v-on-windows/user-guide/nested-virtualization

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/networking/what-s-new-in-networking

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/virtualization/hyper-v/What-s-new-in-Hyper-V-on-Windows#BKMK_HyperVRollingUpgrades

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/virtualization/hyper-v/What-s-new-in-Hyper-V-on-Windows#BKMK_ConfgVersion

Hyper-V upgrade


3 Hyper-V upgrade

3.1 Upgrade overview The Dell EMC XC Series Hyper-Converged Appliance solves the reluctance to upgrade by enabling the “1-

Click Upgrade” feature in the Nutanix Prism Web console. The 1-Click Upgrade process is a non-disruptive

workflow that follows a rolling upgrade methodology through the cluster on a node-by-node basis.

Before performing an upgrade, a series of pre-upgrade health checks are performed on the cluster that it

must pass before proceeding. Once the 1-Click Upgrade process is finished on all the nodes, the final health

check is run before finalizing the process.

The 1-Click Upgrade process takes care of all the operational activities automatically that are required to

perform an upgrade. Before starting an upgrade process on a node, the system ensures that the VMs running

on that node are automatically moved to other nodes in the cluster. After the VMs are moved, the node is

evicted from the cluster. As soon as the operating system upgrade is completed, the node is added back to

the cluster.

The Prism 1-Click Upgrade option is available for upgrading AOS (that includes Prism, Distributed Storage

Fabric (DSF)), NCC, and Foundation. These upgrades are available from a single location within the Prism

interface.

3.2 Best practices This section of the document outlines the best practices to follow to successfully upgrade the Dell EMC XC

Series Hyper-Converged Appliance within a Hyper-V cluster to Microsoft Windows Server 2016.

Dell EMC recommends you follow the best practices defined here to successfully upgrade to Microsoft

Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V.

• Run all cluster health checks, against the entire cluster, from Prism or using command line and

ensure there are no issues reported. If there are reported health issues, ensure that the issues are

fixed before initiating the upgrade process.

Refer to https://portal.nutanix.com/#/page/kbs/details?targetId=kA032000000986SCAQ for details on

how to collect the cluster health check logs.

• Update the host OS with all the latest security updates / cumulative updates.

• Verify the workload (VMs) and workload applications that you are running on this cluster are

compatible with Microsoft Windows Server 2016.

For details refer to https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/virtualization/hyper-v/supported-

windows-guest-operating-systems-for-hyper-v-on-windows.

• Some features that are available in Windows Server 2012 R2 are deprecated in Windows Server

2016. Review the features that are being deprecated to ensure that there are no dependencies on

these features. For detailed list of deprecated features refer to https://docs.microsoft.com/en-

us/windows-server/get-started/deprecated-features.

• Back up all your workloads (VMs) before initiating the upgrade process and ensure the backup is

completed successfully and can be restored in case of any failure or disaster.

• Ensure that live migration is working properly between the nodes of the cluster.

• If there are any VMs that are deployed in customized fashion and may not support live migration,

ensure that you planned for the downtime of those VMs and applications while performing the

upgrade.

https://portal.nutanix.com/#/page/kbs/details?targetId=kA032000000986SCAQ

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/virtualization/hyper-v/supported-windows-guest-operating-systems-for-hyper-v-on-windows


https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/get-started/deprecated-features


Hyper-V upgrade


• Upgrading to Microsoft Windows Server 2016 on Dell EMC XC Series Hyper-Converged Appliance

requires AOS version 5.5.0.4 and above. Review the release notes of the AOS version to familiarize

with the new features, issues fixed, or any known issues. For details refer to

https://portal.nutanix.com/#/page/docs/details?targetId=Release-Notes-Acr-v5504:Release-Notes-

Acr-v5504

• Dell EMC recommends that you follow the Deployment defined in Appendix A. Following the checklist

ensures that the required information is captured prior to deployment and that steps are followed in

appropriate order.

For demonstration and the configuration parameters defined in this document we have used Dell EMC

XC740xd-12 appliances. However, the upgrade procedure remains same for all Dell EMC XC Series 14th

Generation appliances.

For the 13th Generation appliances the upgrade procedure differs slightly as compared to 14th Generation for

upgrading the hardware firmware, BIOS, etc., through iDRAC. Refer to Appendix A.2 for the detailed

instructions.

If you have another model of XC Series running in your environment, ensure that you are downloading the

appropriate firmware and BIOS based on your setup.

https://portal.nutanix.com/#/page/docs/details?targetId=Release-Notes-Acr-v5504:Release-Notes-Acr-v5504


Upgrade procedure


4 Upgrade procedure This section outlines the end-to-end procedure for upgrading a Dell EMC XC Series appliance running

Windows Server 2012 R2 to Windows Server 2016. To upgrade Microsoft Windows Server 2012 to 2016, you

must first ensure that all the prerequisites are in place. The following is the high-level overview of entire

process.

• Prepare your hardware platform by installing latest updates for BIOS, drivers, and SAS controller

firmware

• Upgrade your AOS to the Windows Server 2016 compatible version

• Open Foundation Service Port on all CVMs in the cluster

• Enable Kerberos

• Upgrade Windows Server 2012 R2 to Windows Server 2016

4.1 Prerequisites There are several prerequisites that you must have in place before deploying Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V.

The Appendix A.1 provides a checklist for the information needed throughout this deployment process. Before

beginning the process, fill out the checklist and complete the following prerequisites.

• Install the latest firmware for the following hardware components on all Dell EMC XC Series

appliance nodes

- BIOS

- Internal Dual SD module

- IDRAC

- Network interface controller (NIC) firmware

- SAS RAID controller firmware

- SAS non-RAID controller firmware

• Upgrade Nutanix AOS to 5.5.0.4 or later

• Open the Foundation service port (8000) on all CVMs in the cluster

• Enable Kerberos for Hyper-V. For details refer to

https://portal.nutanix.com/#/page/docs/details?targetId=HyperV-Admin-AOS-v50:hyp-kerberos-

enable-t.html

• Verify the Windows Server 2016 system requirements. For details refer

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/get-started/system-requirements

NOTE: Depending on the present state of your infrastructure, you may have already updated AOS to the

latest version. You may skip these steps after validating the infrastructure. The table below provides a

reference to validate the minimum requirements.

4.2 Software downloads Table 4 lists the minimum firmware and software versions required to complete the prerequisites and the

upgrade process.

https://portal.nutanix.com/%23/page/docs/details?targetId=HyperV-Admin-AOS-v50:hyp-kerberos-enable-t.html

https://portal.nutanix.com/%23/page/docs/details?targetId=HyperV-Admin-AOS-v50:hyp-kerberos-enable-t.html


Upgrade procedure


Required firmware and software

Component Minimum Version

Dell EMC XC740xd BIOS 1.3.4

Dell EMC internal dual SD module firmware

1.7, A02

iDRAC 3.15.15.15

Network controller firmware 18.3.6, A00

SAS RAID controller firmware 2.5.13.2008, A01

HBA adapter (FW and driver component

15.17.08.01

Download AOS Upgrade Binary File

This includes two files

• JSON metadata file

• Binary package

5.5.0.4

Windows Server 2016 ISO Windows Server 2016 with latest updates is recommended

Windows Server 2016 JSON file Hyperv_upgrade_metadata.json

Java Runtime Version 8 or later

NOTE: Hardware firmware downloads listed in Table 4 are applicable to Dell EMC XC740xd. For any other

model of appliance refer to Dell.com/XCSeriesmanuals.

4.3 Upgrade guidelines This section outlines the upgrade guides for updating hardware firmware, upgrading AOS version, and then

upgrading host operating system to Microsoft Windows Server 2016.

4.3.1 Updating system firmware Deploying Microsoft Windows Server 2016 on Dell EMC XC Series requires BIOS and system firmware level

to be at certain versions as mentioned in Table 4. The following are the step-by-step guidelines to performing

the upgrade.

http://download.nutanix.com/hypervisor/hyperv/5.1.5/en_windows_server_2016_x64_dvd_9718492_metadata.json

Dell.com/XCSeriesmanuals

Upgrade procedure


The steps below are performed in a web browser. If you are updating a 13th generation server, steps for

updating firmware are found in Appendix A.2.

NOTE: Upgrading the firmware and BIOS of a cluster node through iDRAC may require you to restart the

node multiple times. Dell EMC strongly recommends you to migrate your workloads to other nodes in the

cluster, and put the node into the maintenance mode before initiating the upgrade process.

Refer to Microsoft documentation on how to put a node in maintenance mode.

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/clustering/2012/04/03/draining-nodes-for-planned-maintenance-with-

windows-server-2012/

1. Download the latest version of the hardware firmware or BIOS from http://www.dell.com/support.

Save the downloaded files on local drive of the system from which you would be accessing the

iDRAC console.

2. Open the iDRAC console for each node of the cluster by accessing the iDRAC IP of the server.

3. From the iDRAC console, select Maintenance and then click System Update.

4. On the Manual Update page, ensure Local is selected as the Location Type.

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/clustering/2012/04/03/draining-nodes-for-planned-maintenance-with-windows-server-2012/


http://www.dell.com/support

Upgrade procedure


5. Click Choose File and browse to the folder location where you saved the files.

6. Select one file at a time and click Upload. After uploading all the files, you will see all the updates

under Update Details on the same page.

NOTE: If the updates uploaded are not applicable to the hardware present on the node, the setup

automatically deselects those updates and proceeds with the rest.

7. Under Update Details, to select all the applicable updates, select the check box next to Contents.

Upgrade procedure


8. To start the upgrade process, click Install and Reboot.

9. As soon as you click Install and Reboot, you see an Information pop up screen. To check the

upgrade process status, click Job Queue.

The Job Queue screen displays the status of all the upgrades that are in progress.

Upgrade procedure


10. As part of the upgrade process, the node reboots to apply the update changes. Monitor the VMs that

were automatically migrated over to other nodes. You can verify the VM migration status either

through accessing the cluster management console, or log in to Prism Web console and see the

status of the VMs.

11. To check the VM status in Prism Web console.

a. Log in to the Prism Web console.

b. From the top left corner of your screen, next to the Home icon click the down arrow button

and select VM.

Upgrade procedure


c. Click Table.

d. You can see the status of all VMs running on the cluster.

12. After the upgrade process is complete, the node reboots automatically.

NOTE: As part of this upgrade process, upgrade the hardware drivers to the latest version. There is a known

issue that occurs with certain network drivers and specific firmware combinations. Refer to Appendix A.3 if

you see an issue with CVM not able to communicate with other CVMs in the cluster. The issue happens due

to VMQ getting disabled.

4.3.1.1 Verify the upgrade completed successfully To verify the upgrade process completed successfully, follow the steps below:

1. Log in to the iDRAC console.

Upgrade procedure


2. Click System > Inventory and verify that upgraded components are at the expected level.

3. Repeat the same steps on all cluster nodes.

4.3.2 Upgrading Nutanix AOS Deploying Microsoft Windows Server 2016 requires that you upgrade the Nutanix AOS to version 5.5.0.4 or

later. This section includes the step-by-step guidelines to upgrade Nutanix AOS Software.

These steps are performed in a web browser. Nutanix recommends using Chrome with JAVA runtime 8 or

later to perform the steps.

In a Dell EMC XC Series Hyper-Converged Appliance cluster, each node runs Nutanix AOS. Whenever you

plan to upgrade the AOS to the latest version, you must upgrade each cluster node to same version. Nutanix

provides a rolling upgrade feature that upgrades all the nodes automatically while ensuring the availability of

the cluster. Nutanix periodically releases updates and makes them available on their support portal for

download.

There are three update paths for AOS on a Dell EMC XC Series Hyper-Converged Appliance.

• Automatic Update: When Enable Automatic Download is selected in Upgrade Software, the web

console regularly checks for the latest version and downloads the software package for you. You can

choose to install the software.

• Manual Update via Prism: When Enable Automatic Download is not selected in Upgrade Software,

you must click on download to retrieve the software package

Note: Both of these options require that you enable the firewall rule as defined in this article to allow system

to download the software package.

• Manual Update: Download the software package manually onto your local system and then upload in

the Prism Web Console. This feature lets you avoid the firewall rule configuration.

This document demonstrates the third option. However, once the software package is downloaded using any

of the above three paths, the installation and configuration steps remain same.

https://portal.nutanix.com/#/page/docs/details?targetId=Web-Console-Guide-Prism-v55:wc-support-firewall-wc-c.html

Upgrade procedure


4.3.2.1 AOS upgrade prerequisites Refer to this article to validate that your cluster meets the prerequisites before initiating the upgrade process.

NOTE: Upgrading the AOS version to 5.1.1 or later may require a memory increase in the CVM if the CVM is

configured with less than 32 GB of virtual memory. The change is due to the increased number of services

and features supported in the newer versions. The CVM memory is increased by 4 GB automatically provided

that the host running the CVM, which has more than 64 GB of. If the AOS upgrade process detects the node

with less than 64 GB, no changes are done to CVM memory.

Dell EMC strongly recommends running the cluster health checks before initiating the upgrade process.

Follow the steps below to run the health checks.

1. From the Prism Web Console on the top left corner, click Home and then select Health.

2. From the Prism Web Console Health page, select Action > Run Checks.

.

3. Select All Checks and then click Run.

https://portal.nutanix.com/#/page/docs/details?targetId=Web-Console-Guide-Prism-v51:wc-cluster-aos-upgrade-prerequisites-wc-c.html

Upgrade procedure


4. If the checks result in anything other than PASS, resolve the issues before proceeding further. If you

are unable to resolve the issue, contact Dell EMC Technical Support.

4.3.2.2 Upgrading AOS Follow the instructions below to download the AOS binary and metadata .json files from the Nutanix support

portal, then upgrade through Upgrade Software in the Prism Web Console.

1. Log in to the Nutanix portal and select Downloads > AOS.

https://support.emc.com/

Upgrade procedure


2. To save the AOS binary file to local disk, click Download.

3. Read the Caution and acknowledge.

Upgrade procedure


4. Right click on the Upgrade Metadata file and select Save link as to save to the same location as the

AOS binary.

5. Log in to the Prism Web Console from any node in the cluster, or with the cluster IP.

6. From the top right corner of the Prism Web Console, click the gear icon , and then select

Upgrade Software.

Upgrade procedure


7. From the Upgrade Software dialog box, the very first option is AOS, which displays the current

version of the AOS installed and provides an option to upload the AOS binary and metadata files. To

enable the upload option, click upload the AOS base software binary option at the bottom of the

screen.

8. To upload the metadata file:

a. Under AOS BASE SOFTWARE METADATA FILE, click Choose File.

b. Select the metadata file, and then click Open.

c. To upload the Nutanix installer package under AOS BASE SOFTWARE BINARY FILE, click

Choose File.

d. Select the binary file, and then click Open.

Upgrade procedure


9. To upload the files, click Upload Now.

10. As soon as both files are uploaded, the available software version is displayed in the Upgrade

Software dialog box, with the Upgrade option enabled.

Upgrade procedure


11. Click the Upgrade drop-down list and select Pre-upgrade.

12. On the Warning message “Do you want to Pre-Upgrade only,” click Yes.

Upgrade procedure


NOTE: This option only runs the pre-upgrade steps. The Pre-upgrade process performs some validation

steps in background. Running these tests first is a best practice. You can fix reported issues at this stage

without disturbing the other CVMs in the cluster. These checks are also run again as part of the upgrade

process.

13. When the Pre-upgrade process completes 100% successfully, click Back to Versions to return to the

upgrade option.

14. On the Upgrade Software dialog box, on the AOS tab, click the Upgrade dropdown and select

Upgrade Now.

Upgrade procedure


15. When you click Upgrade Now an Important Upgrade Notification displays on the screen. Read the

notification before you proceed to ensure you are good to proceed. Click Continue to start the

upgrade process.

16. The process starts again with Preupgrade Steps.

Upgrade procedure


17. When the Preupgrade Steps complete, the AOS upgrade process is started. At this point you can

click Close. The process continues in background.

18. You can monitor the upgrade process from the recent task icon in the Prism Web Console, click View

All Tasks to display the running process.

Upgrade procedure


19. After the upgrade process is completed on a CVM, the CVM restarts. This restart process is non-

disruptive to node operations.

20. While the CVM is rebooting you may see an error message “Unable to reach server, please check

your network connection”. The error message is because the CVM is rebooting. Wait for CVM reboot

to complete and log in to Prism Web Console again.

4.3.2.3 Validating the upgrade process When the upgrade process has completed and all the CVMs in the cluster have rebooted successfully you

can validate the upgrade process.

1. Log in to the Prism Web Console

2. From the top right corner, click Admin and select About Nutanix. This opens an informational dialog

box with the current version of AOS running on the cluster.

Upgrade procedure


3. Alternatively, you can validate the upgrade process by logging into the CVM using PuTTY and run the

following commands:

ncli cluster version

upgrade_status

Upgrade procedure


4.3.3 Microsoft Windows Server 2016 upgrade guidelines This section outlines the steps to upgrade to Microsoft Windows Server 2016 on Dell EMC XC Series

Appliance. The process of moving to Microsoft Windows Server 2016 might vary depending on which

operating system you are running and the pathway you take. Table 5 summarizes, which already licensed

Windows operating systems can be upgraded to which edition of Windows Server 2016.

Upgrade versions of Windows Operating System

Existing Version Upgraded to

Windows Server 2012 Standard Windows Server 2016 Standard or Datacenter

Windows Server 2012 Datacenter Windows Server 2016 Datacenter

Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard Windows Server 2016 Standard or Datacenter

Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter Windows Server 2016 Datacenter

The following list provides general guidelines for supported paths:

• Upgrades from 32-bit to 64-bit architectures are not supported. All editions of Windows Server 2016

are 64-bit only.

• Upgrades from one language to another are not supported.

• Upgrades that switch from a Server Core installation to a Server with a Desktop installation (or vice

versa) is not supported.

• Upgrades from a previous Windows Server installation to an evaluation copy of Windows Server is

not supported. Evaluation versions must be installed as a clean installation.

4.3.3.1 Windows Server 2016 upgrade prerequisites Deploying Windows Server 2016 on Dell EMC XC Series Appliance requires certain prerequisites to be

configured prior to installation of Windows Server 2016. This section outlines the step-by-step procedure to

configure the prerequisites.

4.3.3.2 Enable Kerberos for Hyper-V Dell EMC XC Series Appliance with Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V supports Kerberos

authentication by default. You must enable Kerberos authentication before starting the upgrade process.

Refer to Nutanix documentation for detailed instructions on how to enable Kerberos Authentication.

https://portal.nutanix.com/#/page/docs/details?targetId=HyperV-Admin-AOS-v50:hyp-kerberos-enable-t.html


Upgrade procedure


NOTE: To enable the Kerberos authentication, as defined in the link above, you must create an Active

Directory account as per your administrative and security guidelines. The account will be used as an alternate

account for Kerberos authentication.

4.3.3.3 Running the cluster health check Dell EMC recommends running the cluster health check before initiating the upgrade process. Refer to

section 4.3.2.1 for steps to run the health check.

If the checks result in anything other than PASS, resolve the issues before proceeding further. If you are

unable to resolve the issue, contact Dell EMC Technical Support.

4.3.3.4 Running Live Migration Test manually For the Windows host upgrade to be successful, it’s crucial that guest VMs can live migrate from one node to

another. VMs that cannot live migrate could be indicative of other cluster issues that could cause the upgrade

procedure to fail with the potential for data loss. Do the following to manually test that there are no issues with

VM live migration:

1. Open Failover Cluster Manager from the Windows Server Start menu.

2. In Failover Cluster Manager, right click on the VM to be tested for live migration, select Move > Live

Migration > Select Node.


Upgrade procedure


3. Select the destination node where the VM will migrate to and click OK.

4. The VM should immediately start live migrating and should finish successfully.

5. Repeat the above steps to make sure VMs can live migrate across all nodes.

4.3.3.5 Dell EMC XC Series Hyper-Converged Appliance Hyper-V upgrade steps This topic outlines the step-by-step instructions to upgrade Dell EMC XC Series Hyper-Converged Appliance

with Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V to Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V.

1-Click Upgrade process provided by Dell EMC XC Series Appliance performs a rolling upgrade where only

one node at a time is being upgraded, and the workload is equally distributed across other nodes in the

cluster. The following tasks are performed during the upgrade process.

• Upgrade files are first copied over locally to all nodes in the cluster.

• The upgrade process is run on one node at a time.

• The upgrade process live migrates running VMs to other nodes in the cluster.

• The node is evicted from the cluster.

Upgrade procedure


• The operating system is upgraded to Windows Server 2016.

• When the operating system upgrade is complete, the node is added back to the cluster.

• After completing the entire process on one node, the upgrade process is initiated on another node.

NOTE: If your cluster is registered with SCVMM, unregister the cluster from SCVMM before initiating the

upgrade process.

1. Log in to the Nutanix portal and select Downloads > Hypervisor Details.

2. Click the download link to save the hyperv_upgrade_metadata.json file to local disk.

3. Make sure you have the Windows Server 2016 ISO file available.

4. Log in to the Prism Web Console from any node in the cluster or with the cluster IP.

5. From the top right corner of the Prism Web Console, click on the gear icon , and then select

Upgrade Software to open the Upgrade Software dialog box.

Upgrade procedure


6. In the Upgrade Software dialog box, select Hypervisor. The Hypervisor tab displays the current

version of Hypervisor installed and provides an option to upload the Hypervisor binary files for

upgrade.

7. Click Choose File to upload both the hyper-v metadata .json file and Microsoft Windows Server 2016

ISO file.

Upgrade procedure


8. To upload the files to Prism Web Console, click Upload Now.

9. When the files are uploaded to Prism Web Console, you see the available compatible version and the

Upgrade option enabled on the Upgrade Software dialog box.

10. To initiate the Hyper-V upgrade process, click the Upgrade drop-down list and select Upgrade Now.

11. When you click Upgrade Now, the system prompts for Active Directory domain credentials. Provide

the account credentials for the account that has privileges to modify the cluster objects and hosts.

12. Click Yes.

Upgrade procedure


Important: The Windows Server 2016 default installation SKU is core. Therefore, it is important to ensure that

you select the appropriate SKU for installation.

13. The following warning dialog box appears with some very important information and warnings. Read

the information carefully and ensure that your system is configured accordingly. Click Yes again to

initiate the upgrade process.

Upgrade procedure


14. The upgrade process first runs the pre-upgrade check before the actual upgrade process is initiated.

15. Below is the picture of all VMs running on their respective nodes before the upgrade.

16. During the upgrade process, the workload running on a particular node is live migrated to other nodes

in the cluster. As shown below, Node1 (809HXK2), which was running VM1 and VM2, is now

removed and the VMs are migrating to other nodes in the cluster.

Upgrade procedure


17. As the upgrade process progresses, Node1 (809HXK2) is added back to the cluster, and the

workload on Node2 (88BBXK2) is redistributed across the other nodes, and then Node2 is removed.

Upgrade procedure


18. At this stage, the cluster is now running in mix mode where you can have both Windows Server 2012

R2 and Windows Server 2016 nodes in the same cluster.

19. You can monitor the progress of the entire cluster upgrade process from the Prism Web Console

tasks list.

20. When all nodes of the cluster are upgraded to Windows Server 2016, you should see the upgrade

software dialog box displaying 100% completed.

21. Close the Upgrade Software dialog box and move to the validation steps.

4.3.3.6 Validate the upgrade has completed on all the nodes 1. Log in to the Prism Web Console from any node in the cluster or with the cluster IP.

2. On the Home page, in top left corner of the screen, the Hypervisor summary displays the hypervisor

version presently running on the cluster.

Upgrade procedure


3. Log in to the iDRAC console of each node and verify the system information should display the

current version of operating system running on the server.

4. Log in to each cluster node, and from Server Manager select Local Server and verify the operating

system version of the server.

Upgrade procedure


5. Open the Failover Cluster Management console on one of the cluster nodes and verify all the VMs

are up and running.

6. Check that the VMs are distributed among all the nodes of the cluster. You may see the node that

was upgraded last may not be hosting any VMs as the upgrade process does not redistribute the

VMs.

7. You may live migrate the VMs to redistribute them evenly across all nodes.

4.3.3.7 Complete upgrade process At this point, all the nodes have upgraded to Windows Server 2016, but your cluster is still running in Mixed

Mode. You can check the current cluster functional level by running the following command in Windows

PowerShell on one of the nodes of the cluster.

Get-Cluster | Select ClusterFunctionalLevel

The result of the command at this point would be “8” because the cluster is still running in Mixed Mode and

the entire process can be reversed. You can still add a node using Windows Server 2012 R2 into this cluster.

When you are sure that you do not have any dependency on Windows Server 2012 R2, and there is no way

that you would want to add another Windows Server 2012 R2 node into this cluster, run the following

command to update the cluster functional level to 2016.

Get-Cluster | Update-ClusterFunctionalLevel

Check the cluster functional level once again by running the first command in this section again.

Get-cluster | Select ClusterFunctionalLevel

Cluster functional level 9 indicates the cluster is running in Windows Server 2016 mode.

Refer to this article for more information about different states of the cluster during upgrade process

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/failover-clustering/Cluster-Operating-System-Rolling-Upgrade

Appendix


A Appendix

A.1 Deployment checklist

The following table provides a detailed deployment checklist that should be used to track the progress and

successful completion of the upgrade process from beginning to end.

Deployment checklist

Deployment Check List

IP Addresses per Appliance

Appliance – 1 Appliance - 2 Appliance - 3 Appliance - 4

Service Tag

CVM IP

iDRAC IP

Host-IP

Cluster Network Information

iDRAC Network Production Network

Subnet Mask

Default Gateway

Cluster Virtual IP

Cluster Name

Prism Virtual IP

DNS IP Address

Credentials

Service Account Credentials

Windows Server 2016 Upgrade Account Credentials

Software Download Checklist

Google Chrome (optional)

Download Google Chrome (Optional)

Java Runtime Download the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 8 (1.8.0) or later

Hardware Firmware

Download Hardware Firmware, refer to Software Download Section above.

Nutanix AOS Download Nutanix AOS binary and metadata file, refer to software download section above.

Windows Server 2016 metadata

Download Windows Server 2016 metadata file, refer to software download section above.

Windows Server 2016 ISO

Download Windows Server 2016 ISO file.

https://www.google.com/chrome/

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html

Appendix


Deployment Check List

Upgrade Hardware Firmware

Update the hardware and BIOS firmware on all the nodes of the cluster.

AOS Prerequisite Deploy / Validate the prerequisites of AOS upgrade.

Upgrade AOS Upgrade Nutanix AOS.

Verify AOS Upgrade

Validate the AOS Upgrade has completed successfully.

Windows Server 2016 Prerequisites

Deploy and validate the prerequisites of Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Upgrade.

Widows Server 2016 Upgrade

Upgrade Windows Server 2016.

Validate Windows Upgrade

Validate Windows Server 2016 upgrade has completed successfully on all the nodes of the cluster.

Update Cluster Functional Level

Update cluster functional level to Windows Server 2016.

A.2 Upgrading appliance firmware on Dell EMC XC Series 13th

generation appliance

This section outlines the steps to upgrade the BIOS and firmware on Dell EMC XC Series on a 13th

generation appliance.

1. Download the latest version of the firmware or BIOS from http://www.dell.com/support. Save the

downloaded files on the local drive of the system from which you would be accessing the iDRAC

console.

2. Open the iDRAC console for each node of the cluster by accessing the iDRAC IP of the server and

log in with the administrative credentials.


Appendix


3. From the left pane, select Update and Rollback.

4. Click Choose File to browse to the location where you have saved the update files and select the

files, for example BIOS_XXXX.XXX.exe. Click Upload.

Appendix


5. Repeat the same step to upload all other files.

6. When the files are all uploaded, click Install and Reboot to install the updates.

7. When you click Install and Reboot a System Alert appears on the screen that can take you to Job

Queue.

Appendix


8. To check the progress of the upgrade process, click Job Queue.

9. As part of the upgrade process, the system reboots automatically to update the BIOS.

Appendix


10. The system enters into BIOS setup mode to upgrade the BIOS of the server.

11. When the BIOS setup completes the upgrade process, the system reboots again in normal mode.

12. To verify the upgrade process has completed successfully and the BIOS and firmware are upgraded

to expected version, click System Inventory to display the system information in iDRAC.

A.3 Known issue

After upgrading to the latest network firmware, you may experience an issue with a CVM not communicating

with other nodes in the cluster, or other CVMs hosted on other nodes in the cluster. This issue happens due

to VMQ getting disabled on the NICs that are processing ingress and egress traffic on the node.

Appendix


A.3.1 Symptoms

The VMs on the host can ping the host IP but cannot ping beyond the host. If your VM is configured to get the

IP configuration from DHCP and the DHCP server resides outside the host, your VM may end up getting an

APIPA configuration with 169.254.X.X.

To fix the issue:

1. Download VMQ Autoconfig PowerShell script from Microsoft. Download the script here.

2. Copy the script to the host where you have the issue.

3. In an elevated PowerShell window, set the Execution Policy to Unrestricted.

4. Run the script. The script displays all the NIC cards on the host.

5. Select the NIC card number that is active and is configured with VMs. In the screen below, “NIC1 2” is

the active NIC. Type the number associated with that NIC, which in this case is 1. Then type 0 when

you have finished selecting your NIC, and press Enter.

6. The script retrieves the list of all the processors and associates the processors to the NICs that you

select.

7. Verify if the connectivity should be resumed after the VMQ Autoconfig Script completes successfully.

https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/VMQ-Autoconfig-Script-a771113c

Appendix


8. Repeat the same steps on all the cluster nodes where you see the issue.

Technical support and resources


B Technical support and resources

Dell.com/XCSeriesmanuals is focused on meeting customer needs with proven services and support.

Dell EMC Technical Support

Dell EMC Technical Resource Center on DellEMC.com provides expertise that helps to ensure customer

success on Dell EMC XC Series platforms.

Dell EMC XC Series Hyper-Converged Appliances on DellEMC.com provides marketing materials and the

latest product information on the XC Series Family.

B.1 Related resources

Provide a list of documents and other assets that are referenced in the paper; include other resources that

may be helpful.

• Dell Drivers and Firmware Downloads: http://www.dell.com/support

• Nutanix Bible: http://nutanixbible.com

• Nutanix blog: http://longwhiteclouds.com

• Nutanix portal: https://portal.nutanix.com

• Acropolis Block Services: http://go.nutanix.com/rs/031-GVQ-112/images/acropolis-block-services.pdf

• Windows Server Technical Content Library: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-

server/windows-server

• Dell EMC XC Series Architectural Overview:

https://delltechnologiesworldonline.com/2017/connect/fileDownload/session/70A950EE42086D15B4B

860881D69F3E2/cpsd.16 final.pdf

• Discrete device assignment: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/virtualization/2015/11/19/discrete-

device-assignment-description-and-background/

• Nested virtualization: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/hyper-v-on-windows/user-

guide/nested-virtualization

• Networking features: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/networking/what-s-new-in-

networking

• Rolling Hyper-V cluster upgrade: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-

server/virtualization/hyper-v/What-s-new-in-Hyper-V-on-Windows#BKMK_HyperVRollingUpgrades

• Virtual machine configuration version: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-

server/virtualization/hyper-v/What-s-new-in-Hyper-V-on-Windows#BKMK_ConfgVersion

• NCC Health Check: https://portal.nutanix.com/#/page/kbs/details?targetId=kA032000000986SCAQ

• Supported Windows guest operating systems for Hyper-V on Windows Server 2016:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/virtualization/hyper-v/supported-windows-guest-

operating-systems-for-hyper-v-on-windows

• Features Removed or Deprecated in Windows Server 2016: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-

us/windows-server/get-started/deprecated-features

• AOS Release Notes https://portal.nutanix.com/#/page/docs/details?targetId=Release-Notes-Acr-

v5504:Release-Notes-Acr-v5504

• Configure Kerberos Authentication: https://portal.nutanix.com/#/page/docs/details?targetId=HyperV-

Admin-AOS-v50:hyp-kerberos-enable-t.html

• Windows Server 2016 System Requirements: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/get-

started/system-requirements

https://esg.one.dell.com/sites/solutions/hci/docs/Shared%20Documents/Advanced%20Materials/Snippets/Dell.com/XCSeriesmanuals


https://www.dellemc.com/en-us/converged-infrastructure/xcseries/technical-resources.htm

https://www.dellemc.com/en-us/converged-infrastructure/xcseries/index.htm



http://longwhiteclouds.com/

https://portal.nutanix.com/

http://go.nutanix.com/rs/031-GVQ-112/images/acropolis-block-services.pdf

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/windows-server

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/windows-server













https://portal.nutanix.com/#/page/kbs/details?targetId=kA032000000986SCAQ











Technical support and resources


• Hyperv_upgrade_metadata.json:

http://download.nutanix.com/hypervisor/hyperv/5.1.5/en_windows_server_2016_x64_dvd_9718492_

metadata.json

• Prism 5.5 Firewall Requirements: https://portal.nutanix.com/#/page/docs/details?targetId=Web-

Console-Guide-Prism-v55:wc-support-firewall-wc-c.html

• AOS Upgrade Prerequisites: https://portal.nutanix.com/#/page/docs/details?targetId=Web-Console-

Guide-Prism-v51:wc-cluster-aos-upgrade-prerequisites-wc-c.html

• Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V cluster Maintenance Mode:

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/clustering/2012/04/03/draining-nodes-for-planned-maintenance-

with-windows-server-2012/

• Google Chrome download: https://www.google.com/chrome/

• Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 8 (1.8.0) or later:


• VMQ Autoconfig Script – PowerShell: https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/VMQ-Autoconfig-Script-

a771113c









https://www.google.com/chrome/


