Cisco Compute Hyperconverged with Nutanix Standalone Field Guide

[beveritt]

A Field Guide covering the installation and initial configuration of Cisco Compute Hyperconverged with Nutanix systems using Standalone Cisco UCS C-Series servers managed by Cisco Intersight. This guide is intended for technical training and educational purposes, for all who wish to install Nutanix on Cisco UCS based hardware following our supported hardware and software integrations and compatibility lists.

As a reference guide, the document presents our best practices and recommendations as of the time of publishing, and will be updated periodically. Please refer to the document history at the beginning to ensure you are using the most current version available.

The current version, v2.0, adds information regarding cluster expansions using Foundation Central, additional information when using a Cisco Intersight Private Virtual Appliance during installations, updated information for installing Prism Central on a non-Nutanix ESXi cluster, plus several minor edits.

Version v1.2 added information regarding using Nutanix Lifecycle Manager (LCM) to perform software upgrades and firmware upgrades on the Cisco rackmount servers.

The first revision v1.1 added information regarding the deployment of Witness VMs for 2-node clusters, additional information regarding deployment of Prism Central on ESXi clusters, and several other minor updates.

[mteixeira]

Thank you for this doc.

[magnus.von-rosen]

Magical! Great guide. I've just deployed (for three months running) a small Intersight non-managed cluster at a customer in Sweden, and with the ACI plugin to AHV. It's been a bit of a mess, versions wise. This gives a bit of hope. Looking forward to the "in two months" releases!

[s-hadi]

Hi @beveritt 

Thank you so much for this detailed guide.
We (netone: a Japan based company) are trying to use LCM to upgrade server firmware.

Can you please let me know, what firmware was installed, when you execute "Perform inventory" on page 112?
Page 113 is showing [4.3(4.240152)] as a recommended version. 

Our current firmware is [4.3(4.240152)] and I am thinking of downgrading the server firmware once and then using LCM to upgrade the firmware back to [4.3(4.240152)].

Thank you in advance,
Hadi

[magnus.von-rosen]

If you are deplyoing with Intersight, don’t worry. Intersight will deploy the correct firmware for you automatically, up or downgrade.

/Magnus

[s-hadi]

Hi @magnus.von-rosen 

Thank you for your kind response

Yes, I understand that Intersight is the magic lamp :D.
But My goal is to check what we can do with LCM when its about the server firmware.

Regards,
Hadi

[magnus.von-rosen]

Ah, I see.
My Nutanix Team advised me that LCM Updates is possible since July, LCM version 3.0.1 makes it possible to update AOS etc from LCM.
I'm not sure about firmware, haven't tested it myself yet.

BR
Magnus