Life Cycle Management (LCM) is a priority for every IT operations team. LCM is especially critical for Azure Stack HCI clusters running an organization's most resource-intensive, mission-critical workloads. This practice ensures that systems run at peak performance and availability, maintain a sound security posture, and benefit from newly released features and functionality.
Dell OpenManage Integration with Microsoft Windows Admin Center makes the update process automated, repeatable, and predictable. The OpenManage Integration extension includes a specialized snap-in to Microsoft's Cluster-Aware Updating extension. This innovative collaboration between Microsoft and Dell Technologies creates a single-click full stack update experience. A simple Windows Admin Center workflow orchestrates Azure Stack HCI operating system and AX node BIOS, firmware, and driver updates, requiring only a single reboot per node and resulting in no impact to running workloads in the VMs. The following figure depicts the initial steps in the updates workflow that check for AX node authenticity, correct licensing, and hardware symmetry.

For a detailed technical walkthrough of the full stack life cycle management with the Cluster-Aware Updating workflow in Windows Admin Center, see the OpenManage Integration Technical Walkthrough blog.