Preinstallation Checklist

System Requirements

Hardware Requirements

Requirement

Description

Cisco HX Data Platform Servers

Cisco HyperFlex M5 Converged nodes:1

  • All Flash—Cisco HyperFlex HXAF240c M5, HXAF220c M5

  • Hybrid—Cisco HyperFlex HX240c M5, HX220c M5, HX240c-M5L

Cisco UCS Fabric Interconnects (FIs)

Cisco UCS Fabric Interconnects (FIs) 6200 and 6300

Starting with 4.0(1b), Cisco UCS Fabric Interconnects (FIs) 6400

1 Hyper-V support is limited to M5 servers.

Software Requirements for Microsoft Hyper-V - 4.5(x) Releases

The software requirements include verification that you are using compatible versions of Cisco HyperFlex Systems (HX) components and Microsoft Hyper-V (Hyper-V) components.

HyperFlex Software versions

The HX components—Cisco HX Data Platform Installer, Cisco HX Data Platform, and Cisco UCS firmware—are installed on different servers. Verify that each component on each server used with and within the HX Storage Cluster are compatible. For detailed information on installation requirements and steps, see the Cisco HyperFlex Systems Installation Guide on Microsoft Hyper-V.

Table 1. Qualified Server Firmware for M5 Servers on Hyper-V

HyperFlex Release

M5 Qualified Server Firmware

4.5(2e)

4.1(3f)

4.5(2d)

4.1(3f)

4.5(2c)

4.1(3f)

4.5(2b)

4.1(3f)

4.5(2a)

4.1(3f)

4.5(1a)

4.1(3f)
Table 2. Supported Microsoft Software versions

Microsoft Component

Version

Windows Operating System (Windows OS)

Windows Server 2016 Datacenter Core & Desktop Experience.

Note

 
For Windows Server 2016 Datacenter Core and Desktop Experience, the Windows 2016 ISO image should be Update Build Revision (UBR) 1884 at a minimum.

Windows Server 2019 Datacenter-Desktop Experience is supported starting from HXDP 4.0.1(a) onwards.

Note

 
For Windows Server 2019 Desktop Experience, the Windows 2019 ISO image should be Update Build Revision (UBR) 107 at a minimum.

Windows Server 2019 Datacenter–Core is not supported currently.

Also note that the following are currently not supported:

OEM activated ISOs and Retail ISOs are not supported.

Earlier versions of Windows Server such as Windows 2012r2 are not supported.

Non-English versions of the ISO are not supported.

Active Directory

A Windows 2012 or later domain and forest functionality level.

Supported Microsoft License Editions

The Microsoft Windows Server version that is installed on one or more HyperFlex hosts must be licensed as per Microsoft licensing requirements listed on Microsoft Licensing.

Network Services

Network Service

Description

DNS

Microsoft Active Directory and Active Directory integrated DNS are required for the HX Platform and must be outside of the cluster.

Standalone DNS server is not supported. Non-Windows DNS servers are not supported.

NTP

Ensure that the time is synchronized between the controller VMs and the hosts. For that purpose, use the Active Directory Time Synchronization Engine.

Attention

 

Ensure that you use the Active Directory domain name as the NTP server when prompted by HX Data Platform Installer.

Note

 

Do not nest all of your Active Directory servers in your HyperFlex cluster. Active Directory should reside outside of the HyperFlex cluster so that if the cluster were to encounter issues, you could still authenticate.

Note

 

If you are using Active Directory as an NTP server, please make sure that the NTP server is setup according to Microsoft best practices. For more information, see Windows Time Service Tools and Settings. Please note that if the NTP server is not set correctly, time sync may not work, and you may need to fix the time sync on the client-side. For more information, see Synchronizing ESXi/ESX time with a Microsoft Domain Controller.

Port Requirements

If your network is behind a firewall, in addition to the standard port requirements, Microsoft recommends ports for the Hyper-V Manager and Hyper-V cluster. Verify that the following firewall ports are open.

Port Number

Protocol

Direction

Usage

80

HTTP/TCP

Inbound

HX Data Platform Installer

443

HTTPS /TCP

Inbound

HX Data Platform Installer

2068

virtual keyboard/Video/ Mouse (vKVM) / TCP

Inbound

hx-ext-mgmt IP pool (one IP per HX node)

22

SSH/TCP

Inbound/Outbound

HX Data Platform Installer

110 (secure POP port is TCP; 995)

POP3/TCP

Inbound/Outbound

143 (secure IMAP port is TCP; 993)

IMAP4/TCP

Inbound/Outbound

25

SMTP/TCP

Outbound

Mail Server

53 (external lookups)

DNS/TCP/UDP

Outbound

DNS

123

NTP/UDP

Outbound

NTP

161

SNMP Poll

Inbound

SNMP

162

SNMP Trap

Outbound

SNMP

8089

TCP

Inbound

HX Data Platform Installer

445

SMB 2

Inbound

HX Controller VM

5986

HTTP/TCP

Inbound/Outbound

HX CLI, HX Connect

Note

For additional information about ports, see Appendix A of the Cisco HX Data Platform Security Hardening Guide.

Guidelines and Limitations

For best experience with Microsoft Hyper-V installation, you must follow the specific guidelines listed below.

  • Use UCSM 4.0.1i with Cisco HyperFlex System installations for Hyper-V, Release 4.5(x).

  • Adding HyperFlex nodes to Microsoft System Center 2016 Virtual Machine Manager (Windows VMM 2016) evaluation version will cause errors. Refer to Microsoft help article for a resolution for this issue.

  • The following features are NOT supported in the current release:

    • SED Drives

    • Native Replication

    • Cisco HyperFlex Edge

    • Stretched Clusters

    • Intersight-based deployment

    • LAZ and scale beyond 8 nodes

    • HX M4 or M6 Hardware

    • Shared VHDX / VHD Sets

    • Only use the Hyper-V ReadyClone PowerShell script on a cluster node that is not in a paused state.

Preinstallation Tasks Summary

Ensure the following is installed and configured prior to installing and deploying HyperFlex.

Task

Description

Rack HyperFlex nodes including Cisco UCS Fabric Interconnects set up

See Rack Cisco HyperFlex Nodes

Verify Cisco UCS Manager version

Ensure that you are using Cisco UCS Manager version 4.1(2a) or later. Refer to the Release Notes for Cisco HX Data Platform for the latest supported releases.

Verify VLANs

Configure the upstream switches to accommodate non-native VLANs. Cisco HX Data Platform Installer sets the VLANs as non-native by default.

Add DNS Records

You must add DNS A and PTR records for your installation. See: Adding DNS Records

Configure Domain Administrator for Active Directory

See: Enabling Constrained Delegation

Adding DNS Records

Prior to the installation you must add DNS A and PTR records to avoid installation failures.

Device

Description

Hyper-V host

For each host, add an A and PTR record.

Controller node

Controller VM IP address for the A record. This is eth0 on the management IP network.

Windows Failover Cluster

Windows Failover Cluster Object.

HX Connect UI

Cluster management IP address.

Refer to DNS Records section in this guide for the records shown as PowerShell commands to run directly on your environment.

Enabling Constrained Delegation

The steps in this topic must be completed to enable constrained delegation.

Constrained delegation is used to join computers to the Active Directory. You provide constrained delegation information through the HX Data Platform Installer. Constrained delegation uses a service account that is created manually. For example: hxadmin. This service account is then used to log into Active Directory, join the computers, and perform authentication from the HyperFlex Storage Controller VM. The Active Directory computer accounts applied to every node in the HyperFlex cluster include:

  • Hyper-V host

  • HyperFlex Storage Controller VM

  • Hyper-V host cluster namespace

  • Server Message Block (SMB) Share namespace for the HyperFlex cluster

Procedure

Step 1

Create an hxadmin domain user account as HX service account.

Step 2

Create an Organization Unit (OU) in Active Directory (AD), for example, HyperFlex.

  1. Use the Active Directory Users and Computers management tool to create the OU. Select View > Advanced Features to enable advance features. Select the OU that you created. For example, HyperFlex > Properties > Attribute Editor.

  2. Find the distinguished name attribute in the OU, and record the information as this will be required in the Constrained Delegation wizard of the HX Data Platform Installer wizard. The values will look like this: OU=HyperFlex,DC=contoso,DC=com.

    Use the Get-ADOrganizationalUnit cmdlet to get an organizational unit (OU) object or to perform a search to get multiple OUs. 

    
   Get-ADOrganizationalUnit
   [-AuthType <ADAuthType>]
   [-Credential <PSCredential>]
   -Filter <String>
   [-Properties <String[]>]
   [-ResultPageSize <Int32>]
   [-ResultSetSize <Int32>]
   [-SearchBase <String>]
   [-SearchScope <ADSearchScope>]
   [-Server <String>]
   [<CommonParameters>]

Step 3

Use Active Directory Users and Computers management tool to grant full permissions for the hxadmin user for the newly created OU. Ensure that Advanced features are enabled. If not, go back to Step 2.

  1. Select the OU that you created. For example, HyperFlex > Properties > Security > Advanced.

  2. Click Change Owner and choose your hxadmin user.

  3. Click Add in the Advanced view.

  4. Select the principal and choose the hxadmin user. Then, choose Full Control, and click OK.