On the four-node cluster based on AX-740xd nodes from Dell Technologies, the automated approach required 82 percent fewer steps to fully update the hardware as compared with the manual approach. Based on an extrapolation of this figure to the maximum 16 nodes in a cluster, hardware updates using the automated approach would require 95 percent fewer steps. The following figure provides a visual comparison of the number of steps in the processes:

Figure 4.              Required steps: Automated and manual approach comparison

With the automated approach, the number of steps always remains consistent as more nodes are added to a cluster. With the manual approach, the number of steps would increase linearly as the number of nodes in the cluster increases. The manual update process includes two steps that must only be completed once per cluster (that is, steps 3 and 5 in Table 4) and five steps that must only be completed once per node (steps 8 through 12 in Table 4).