Reference Guide
Table Of Contents
- Microsoft HCI Solutions from Dell Technologies: Managing and Monitoring the Solution Infrastructure Life Cycle Operations Guide
- Contents
- Introduction
- Day 0 Operations
- 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
- Prerequisites for managing AX nodes
- Installing the Azure Stack HCI license (Ready Nodes only)
- Managing Azure Stack HCI clusters
- Full Stack Cluster-Aware Updating prerequisites for AX-7525 and AX-6515 nodes (offline update)
- Full Stack Cluster-Aware Updating for Azure Stack HCI clusters using the OpenManage Integration snap-in
- Updating a stand-alone node before adding it to the cluster
- Known issues
- 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
- Restarting a cluster node or taking a cluster node offline
- Expanding the Azure Stack HCI cluster
- Extending volumes
- Performing AX node recovery
- Operating system recovery
Figure 20. Select updates
6. Select the updates and click Install Next Reboot to install and reboot the system.
Updating the out-of-box drivers
For certain system components, you might need to update the drivers to the latest Dell supported versions, which are listed in
the Supported Firmware and Software Matrix.
Run the following PowerShell command to retrieve the list of all driver versions that are installed on the local system:
Get-PnpDevice | Select-Object Name, @{l='DriverVersion';e={(Get-PnpDeviceProperty -
InstanceId $_.InstanceId -KeyName 'DEVPKEY_Device_DriverVersion').Data}} -Unique | Where-
Object {($_.Name -like "*HBA*") -or ($_.Name -like "*mellanox*") -or ($_.Name -like
"*Qlogic*") -or ($_.Name -like "*X710*") -or ($_.Name -like "*intel*") -or ($_.Name
-like "*Broadcom*")}
Run the following PowerShell command to check the chipset driver installation status. If there is an error, install the chipset
driver.
Get-PnpDevice -PresentOnly | Where-Object {($_.Status -ne 'OK') -and ($_.Problem -ne
'CM_PROB_NONE' -and $_.Problem -ne 'CM_PROB_DISABLED')}
After you identify the required driver version, including for the chipset and the HBA, download the driver installers from https://
www.dell.com/support or by using the Dell EMC Repository Manager (DRM) as described in Obtaining the firmware catalog for
AX nodes or Ready Nodes using the Dell EMC Repository Manager.
After the drivers are downloaded, copy the identified drivers to AX nodes from where you can manually run the driver DUP files
to install the drivers and restart the node.
Alternatively, to install the drivers silently, go to the folder and run the following command: DriverUpdate.EXE /s /f
Exiting the AX node from maintenance mode
After updating the AX node, exit the storage maintenance mode and node maintenance mode by running the following
commands:
Get-StorageFaultDomain -type StorageScaleUnit | Where-Object {$_.FriendlyName -eq
"<Hostname>"} | Disable-StorageMaintenanceMode
Resume-ClusterNode -Name “Hostname” -Failback Immediate
These commands initiate the operation of rebuilding and rebalancing the data to ensure load balancing.
For the remaining cluster nodes, repeat the preceding procedures for conducting maintenance operations.
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Day 0 Operations