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End-to-End Deployment Guide with Scalable Networking: Microsoft HCI Solutions from Dell Technologies
Notes, cautions, and warnings Copyright Deployment Introduction Solution Overview Solution Deployment Introduction to network integration Scalable Architecture Additional guidance for all configurations Deploying and Configuring a Host Cluster References GPU Integration Persistent Memory for Windows Server HCI Day 1 operations Managing and monitoring clusters with Windows Admin Center Dell OpenManage Integration with Windows Admin Center Updates and maintenance
Updates and maintenance
Annual feature update for an Azure Stack HCI Solution
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

Annual feature update for an Azure Stack HCI Solution

Annual feature update for an Azure Stack HCI Solution

  • Azure Stack HCI is a hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) operating system that is delivered as an Azure service. HCI provides the latest security, performance, and feature updates at regular intervals. Updates are provided in the form of monthly quality updates and annual feature updates. The annual feature update is a major update and requires adequate resources and planning. Dell Engineering has worked with Microsoft on listing together prerequisites that should be considered and met before you update your Azure Stack HCI Solution, and also listed the different supported methods of updating your solution. We recommend that you go through this section before you decide which method to choose for updating your infrastructure.

    Following are the prerequisites to consider before you run annual updates on your solution.
    1. This activity should preferably be performed during off peak hours, as the upgrade process might require multiple CAU runs and heavy I/O on the subsystem will require long repair times.
    2. Ensure that the servers in use are in the compatibility matrix for support with the version of Azure Stack HCI that you intend to upgrade.
    3. Ensure that all nodes in the cluster are updated to the latest Windows operation system patches/hotfixes (Quality Updates) and hardware updates as per the latest support matrix/catalog. Drivers and firmware specific to the newer version of Azure Stack HCI OS, still have to be updated post upgrade.
    4. All nodes in the cluster should be available and running.
    5. The storage pool and all virtual disks should be healthy.
    6. Physical disks should not be in storage maintenance mode.
    7. If the cluster is a stretch cluster, see the section Stretch cluster scenarios for further details.
    8. Any feature upgrade requires the CAU process to download large amounts of data to perform the upgrade. Usually it would be more than 2 to 3 GB.
    Note: At the time of writing this document, a CAU upgrade downloads all the updates once for each node.


    Recommended methods for feature update

    Dell Engineering has validated and tested the following update paths, and it is highly recommended that you follow the process that is given in these sections.


    Connected scenarios


    Windows Admin Center based upgrades

    All Full Stack updates that are initiated from Windows Admin Center involve a CAU process, running both OS quality and feature updates, and also updating the subsystem components like firmware and drivers. To get an insight on how to run a Full Stack update using Windows Admin Center and to take advantage of Dell OpenManage Integration with Microsoft Windows Admin Center extension, see Full Stack Cluster-Aware Updating for Azure Stack HCI clusters using the OpenManage Integration snap-in.

    Once prerequisites to perform a feature update are met, the process of running a WAC full stack update is no different than running any regular end-to-end update. Go to the Updates section and select Feature Updates, to update the cluster to a higher version of Azure Stack HCI.


    PowerShell based upgrades

    An update to Azure Stack HCI OS can also be done by using Invoke-CAURun PowerShell cmdlet.

    After all prerequisites are met, perform the following steps:

    1. Run the following commands on all nodes to enable the firewall rule and allow automatic restarts: 
      Set-WSManQuickConfig 
      Enable-PSRemoting 
      Set-NetFirewallRule -Group "@firewallapi.dll,-36751" -Profile Domain -Enabled true
    2. Run the following command to add a CAU cluster role in the cluster: 
      Add-CauClusterRole -CauPluginName Microsoft.WindowsUpdatePlugin, Microsoft.HotfixPlugin,Microsoft.RollingUpgradePlugin
    3. Run the following command to test the CAU setup: 
      Test-CauSetup -ClusterName <ClusterName>
    4. You might see an error message The machine proxy on each failover cluster node should be set to a local proxy server. This is normal for nodes that are connected to the internet.
    5. Run the following command:
      Note: The Invoke-CauScan cmdlet performs the scanning of cluster nodes for applicable updates and gets a list of the initial set of updates that are applied to each node in a specific cluster. 

      Invoke-CauScan -ClusterName <clustername> -CauPluginName "Microsoft.RollingUpgradePlugin" -CauPluginArguments @{'WuConnected'='true';} -Verbose | fl *
    6. The Invoke-cauRun cmdlet can be run on any of the nodes of the cluster or on a remote server running Windows Server 2022 or Azure Stack HCI. 
      Invoke-CauRun -ClusterName <clusterName> -CauPluginName "Microsoft.RollingUpgradePlugin" -CauPluginArguments @{'WuConnected'='true';} -Verbose -EnableFirewallRules -Force -RequireAllNodesOnline -ForceSelfUpdate
    7. When the cluster is not connected to the Internet, CAU can be used to upgrade the cluster using extracted Azure Stack HCI media. 
      Invoke-CauRun –ClusterName <cluster_name> -CauPluginName Microsoft.RollingUpgradePlugin -CauPluginArguments @{ 'WuConnected'='false';'PathToSetupMedia'='\some\path\'; 'UpdateClusterFunctionalLevel'='true'; } -Force
    8. The ForceSelfUpdate switch is needed, if you run the CAU process from a node within the cluster.

    Post Update tasks

    After an Azure Stack HCI cluster upgrade, perform the following steps:
    1. Run the following command to update the cluster functional level: 
      Update-ClusterFunctionalLevel
    2. Run the following command to update the storage pool: 
      Update-StoragePool -FriendlyName "S2D on hci-cluster"
    3. Upgrade VM configuration levels.

      You may optionally upgrade VM configuration levels by stopping each VM and using the Update-VMVersion cmdlet.

    4. Ensure that the Azure Stack HCI is still connected to Azure.

    After Microsoft Azure registration, use the Get-AzureStackHCI command to confirm the cluster registration and connection status.


    Stretch cluster scenarios

    The upgrading procedure for standalone and stretch clusters are exactly the same.

    Ensure that the following steps are performed before attempting a stretch cluster upgrade from 21H2 to 22H2:

    1. All the nodes in both sites have access to the internet to download the 22H2 update.
    2. All the nodes in the cluster (both sites) are available and running, and no nodes or disks are in maintenance mode.
    3. All the resources (Virtual Machines and Virtual Disks) have preferred site set so that they do not live migrate between sites during the upgrade.

    Final notes

    After upgrading Azure Stack HCI, do the following:
    • Run the CAU process again to update all the nodes to the latest Microsoft CU and latest firmware and drivers.
    • Ensure that the BitLocker feature is installed on the cluster nodes, if not install using the following powerless command: 
      Install-WindowsFeature -Name *BitLocker* -IncludeAllSubFeature -IncludeManagementTools -Verbose