Applying and activating updates to managed servers

Lenovo XClarity Orchestrator does not automatically apply updates. To update firmware, you must manually apply and activate the update on selected devices that are not compliant with the assigned update-compliance policy.

Before you begin

Before you attempt to apply and activate updates on any device, ensure that you read the update considerations (see Update deployment considerations).

Ensure that a update-compliance policy is assigned to the target device (see Creating and assigning update-compliance policies).

You can apply firmware updates to only managed servers.

When updating firmware on many devices at one time, use XClarity Orchestrator v1.3.1 or later and Lenovo XClarity Administrator v3.2.1 or later for better performance.

About this task

You can apply firmware updates to devices that have an assigned update-compliance policy and are not compliant with that policy. You can update firmware in the following ways.

To specific non-compliant devices
To all non-compliant devices in specific groups
To all non-compliant devices that are assigned a specific update-compliance policy
To all non-compliant devices in specific groups that are assigned a specific update-compliance policy
To all non-compliant devices that are assigned to any policy and are not compliant with that policy

A server is flagged as Not Compliant when the installed firmware version of one or more components is earlier or later than the target firmware version in the update-compliance policy. If the installed firmware version is later than the target firmware version, you must select the Force update option when applying the update to downgrade the firmware on the components. If the Force update option is not selected, only target firmware versions that are later than the installed versions are applied.

Note

Only certain device options, adapters, and drives support downgrading. See your hardware documentation to determine if downgrading is supported.

XClarity Orchestrator does not directly update resources. Instead, it sends a request to the applicable resource manager to perform the update, and then tracks the progress of the request. XClarity Orchestrator identifies the dependencies that are required to perform the update, ensures that the target resources are updated in the correct order, transfers the applicable update packages to the resource manager, and creates a request to start a job on the resource manager to perform the update.

During the update process, the target device might be restarted automatically several times until the entire update process is complete. Ensure that you quiesce all applications on the target device before you proceed.

If an error occurs while updating any of the components in a target device, the update process does not update that component; however, the update process continues to update the other components in the device and continues to update all other target device in the current update job.

Prerequisite updates are not applied automatically.

Tip

The table lists only devices that can be updated.
The Build Number, Compliance Target Build Number, and Product Name columns are hidden from view by default. You can show these columns by clicking All Actions > Toggle Columns.
For ThinkSystem SR635, SR645, SR655, and SR665 servers, to apply both in-band and out-of-band firmware, first apply updates to the baseboard management controllers, and then apply firmware updates to the remaining options.

Procedure

To apply updates to managed devices, complete one of the following procedures.

To specific non-compliant devices
1. From the XClarity Orchestrator menu bar, click Provisioning () > Updates and then click Apply and Activate to display the Apply and Activate card.
2. Click the Devices tab.
3. Select one or more devices to which you want to apply updates.
4. Click the Apply Update icon () to display the Update Summary dialog.
5. Select when to activate the updates.
  - Prioritized activation. Firmware updates on the baseboard management controller are activated immediately; all other firmware updates are firmware updates are activated the next time the device is restarted. Additional restarts are then performed until the update operation completes.
    An event is raised when the status changes to Pending Firmware Maintenance Mode to notify you when the server needs to be restarted.
  - Delayed activation. Some but not all update operations are performed. Target devices must be restarted manually to continue the update process. Additional restarts are then performed until the update operation completes.
    An event is raised when the status changes to Pending Firmware Maintenance Mode to notify you when the server needs to be restarted.
    If the target device restarts for any reason, the delayed update process completes.
    Important
    Use Restart Normally to restart the server to continue the update process. Do not use Restart Immediately.
    Do not choose Delayed Activation for more than 50 devices at one time. XClarity Orchestrator actively monitors devices with delayed activation so that the delayed activation is serviced when a device is restarted. If you want to apply updates with delayed activation for more than 50 devices, break the update selection into batches of 50 devices at one time.
  - Immediate activation. During the update process, the target device might be restarted automatically several times until the entire update process is complete. Ensure that you quiesce all applications on the target device before you proceed.
  Note
  - For ThinkEdge Client devices, only Immediate activation is supported, regardless of the activation rule that you select.
  - When enabled, the Wake-on-LAN boot option can interfere with Lenovo XClarity Administrator operations that power off the server, including firmware updates if there is a Wake-on-LAN client in your network that issues “Wake on Magic Packet” commands.
6. Optional: Select Force update update to update firmware on the selected components even if the firmware level is up to date or to apply a firmware update that is earlier than the one currently installed on the selected components.
7. Optional: Select Schedule update to choose the date and time when you want the firmware update to run. If not selected, the firmware is updated immediately.
8. Click Perform Updates to apply the updates .
  A job is created to perform this operation. You can monitor the progress of the job from the Monitoring () > Jobs card. If the job did not complete successfully, click the job link to display details about the job (see Monitoring jobs.)
To all non-compliant devices in specific groups that are assigned a specific update-compliance policy
1. From the XClarity Orchestrator menu bar, click Provisioning () > Updates and then click Apply and Activate to display the Apply and Activate card.
2. Click the Devices tab.
3. Select one or more device groups to which you want to apply updates.
4. Click the Apply Update icon () to display the Update Summary dialog.
5. Select the groups and update-compliance policy.
  - If you do not select a policy or group, all devices that have an assigned policy and that are not compliant with that policy are updated.
  - If you select a policy but not a group, all devices that are assigned that policy and that are not compliant with that policy are updated.
  - If you select one or more groups and not a policy, all devices in the group that are not compliant with the assigned policy are updated.
  - If you select a policy and one or more groups, all devices in the group that are assigned that policy and that are not compliant with that policy are updated.
6. Select when to activate the updates.
  - Prioritized activation. Firmware updates on the baseboard management controller are activated immediately; all other firmware updates are firmware updates are activated the next time the device is restarted. Additional restarts are then performed until the update operation completes.
    An event is raised when the status changes to Pending Firmware Maintenance Mode to notify you when the server needs to be restarted.
  - Delayed activation. Some but not all update operations are performed. Target devices must be restarted manually to continue the update process. Additional restarts are then performed until the update operation completes.
    An event is raised when the status changes to Pending Firmware Maintenance Mode to notify you when the server needs to be restarted.
    If the target device restarts for any reason, the delayed update process completes.
    Important
    Use Restart Normally to restart the server to continue the update process. Do not use Restart Immediately.
    Do not choose Delayed Activation for more than 50 devices at one time. XClarity Orchestrator actively monitors devices with delayed activation so that the delayed activation is serviced when a device is restarted. If you want to apply updates with delayed activation for more than 50 devices, break the update selection into batches of 50 devices at one time.
  - Immediate activation. During the update process, the target device might be restarted automatically several times until the entire update process is complete. Ensure that you quiesce all applications on the target device before you proceed.
  Note
  - For ThinkEdge Client devices, only Immediate activation is supported, regardless of the activation rule that you select.
  - When enabled, the Wake-on-LAN boot option can interfere with Lenovo XClarity Administrator operations that power off the server, including firmware updates if there is a Wake-on-LAN client in your network that issues “Wake on Magic Packet” commands.
7. Optional: Select Force update update to update firmware on the selected components even if the firmware level is up to date or to apply a firmware update that is earlier than the one currently installed on the selected components.
8. Optional: Select Schedule update to choose the date and time when you want the firmware update to run. If not selected, the firmware is updated immediately.
9. Click Perform Updates to apply the updates .
  A job is created to perform this operation. You can monitor the progress of the job from the Monitoring () > Jobs card. If the job did not complete successfully, click the job link to display details about the job (see Monitoring jobs.)

After you finish

You can perform the following actions from the Patterns card.

Forward reports about firmware compliance on a reoccurring basis to one or more email addresses by clicking the Create Report Forwarder icon (). The report is sent using the data filters that are currently applied to the table. All shown and hidden table columns are included in the report. For more information, see Forwarding reports.
Add a firmware compliance report to a specific report forwarder using the data filters that are currently applied to the table by clicking the Add to Report Forwarder icon (. If the report forwarder already includes a firmware compliance report, the report is updated to use the current data filters.

You can cancel a scheduled firmware-update job that has not yet run by clicking Monitoring () > Jobs from the XClarity Orchestrator menu bar, and click the Schedules tab to display the Scheduled Jobs card. Select the scheduled job, and then click the Canceled () icon.

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