Lifecycle Management on VxRail 8.0

By Victor Wu on 2023 年 06 月 06 日 • ( Leave a comment )

VxRail LCM has some great features including the Compliance Report (shows where your system is out of compliance against the Continuously Validated State), the Update Advisory Report (shows what your future state would look like if the selected update is performed and which components would need to be updated), and estimated update duration (to help you determine the maintenance window).

Preparation: You need to download the VxRail Upgrade Package in dell support website.

Now we will show how to upgrade VxRail software (8.0.000-27820165 to 8.0.001-27889232).

Select VxRail-Virtual-SAN-Cluster-xxxx > Configure > VxRail > Updates

Go to Compliance Tab, it shows cluster compliance status and view/generate the Compliance Report.

Click CREATE NEW REPORT.

Click Create.

Then the report will then be generated. Click View the report to open the report.

The report includes Timestamp, Desired State, and Component/Subcomponent compliance status.

We can choose “Internet Updates” or “Local Updates” to upgrade the VxRail software. The update bundle can be provided locally and then uploaded to the VxRail Manager.

Option 1 is to download the update bundle and stage its contents for a cluster update.
Option 2 is to first generate an advisory report before proceeding with a cluster update.

Click PRE-CHECK.

Click RUN PRE-CHECK.

Type in credentials on VxRail Manager root account and vCenter administrator account. Click VALIDATE.

Once the credentials are successfully validated, Click CONFIRM.

The pre-check will execute and display errors or warnings that are generated.

Click CLOSE PRE-CHECK.

Click NEXT to start update process.

The LCM Change Report lists all the components, which shows the current version that is running on the component as well as the target version that the component will be running after the cluster update.

Click NEXT to continue the update process.

Some warnings are displayed before continuing the update. Click UPDATE.

Select Update Now and click NEXT.

Type in credentials on VxRail Manager root account and vCenter administrator account. Click Next.

Click FINISH to start the VxRail cluster update process.

NOTE: During the update the VxRail Manager VM will be rebooted, which will result in the UI losing connection.

Once the process is finished, it will show a “successfully updated” message. Click FINISH.

We can see that the VxRail System, VxRail Manager, and VMware vCenter Server Appliance versions have been updated. The install date and time has also been updated.