Reference Guide
Table Of Contents
- Dell EMC HCI Solutions for Microsoft Windows Server: Managing and Monitoring the Solution Infrastructure Life Cycle Operations Guide
- Introduction
- Day 0 Operations
- Introduction
- Azure onboarding for Azure Stack HCI OS
- Licensing for Azure Stack HCI for Windows Server 2016 and 2019
- Creating virtual disks
- Managing and Monitoring Azure Stack HCI Cluster using Windows Admin Center
- Installing Windows Admin Center
- Adding the HCI cluster connection
- Accessing the HCI cluster
- Viewing server details
- Viewing drive details
- Managing and monitoring volumes
- Enabling data deduplication on Storage Spaces Direct
- Monitoring and managing VMs
- Managing virtual switches
- Dell EMC OpenManage Integration with Windows Admin Center
- Firmware updates using Dell EMC OpenManage Integration for Microsoft System Center for System Center Virtual Machine Manager
- Firmware and driver updates using the manual method
- Expanding the Azure Stack HCI cluster
- Extending volumes
- Performing AX node recovery
- Operating system recovery
● At Schedule Update, select Run Now or schedule an update for a later time.
● At Update Method, select an update method.
○ Agent Free Update—Updates are applied, and the system restarts immediately.
○ Agent-Free Staged Update—Updates that do not require a system restart are applied immediately. Updates that
require a restart are applied when the system restarts.
9. Click Finish.
Firmware and driver updates using the manual method
These procedures describe how to prepare and update firmware and drivers on an Azure Stack HCI cluster manually.
Preparing for maintenance operations
About this task
Use the following PowerShell commands to ensure that all the requirements are met before proceeding with the maintenance
operation of an AX node in an Azure Stack HCI cluster. These steps ensure that all the requirements are met and that no faults
exist before placing an AX node into maintenance mode.
Steps
1. Verify that all the nodes in the cluster are available by running the Get-clusternode command.
2. Verify that all the cluster networks are available by running the Get-ClusterNetwork command.
3. Verify that the cluster status is healthy by running the following commands:
● Get-ClusterS2D
● Get-StoragePool
● Get-StorageSubSystem -FriendlyName *Cluster* | Get-StorageHealthReport
4. Verify that all the physical and virtual drives are healthy by running the following commands:
● Get-physicaldisk
● Get-virtualdisks
5. Verify that no back-end repair jobs are running by running the Get-storagejob command.
Placing an AX node in maintenance mode
About this task
After ensuring that the prerequisites are met and before performing the platform updates, place the AX node in maintenance
mode (pause and drain). You can move roles or VMs and gracefully flush and commit data in the AX node.
Steps
1. Run the following command to put the node in maintenance mode (pause and drain). Verify that all the roles and virtual
drives are drained properly and operational in other nodes after they are moved:
Suspend-ClusterNode -name “Hostname” -Drain
2. Place the target node in maintenance mode:
Get-StorageFaultDomain -type StorageScaleUnit | Where-Object {$_.FriendlyName -eq
"<Hostname>"} | Enable-StorageMaintenanceMode
3. Run the Get-Physical Disk command, and ensure that the Operational Status value is in maintenance mode for the
drives that belong to that server.
Day 0 Operations
29