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Compute plane nodes (CPN) share the compute services load and allow managing more HMC-managed hosts.
When PowerVC manages a host through the HMC interface, a new compute service that is responsible for all virtualization operations on that host is started on the PowerVC management server itself. If you need to manage more than the defined number of hosts, you must maintain multiple PowerVC instances. With the new compute plane node feature that provides better scaling and reliability, you can avoid maintenance of multiple PowerVC instances.
A CPN can be any plain virtual machine (VM) with RHEL (ppc64le or x86) and SLES (ppc64le) in the same subnet as the PowerVC management node. You can register the VM that you want to use as a CPN in PowerVC UI with your credentials. When a CPN is registered, it is only used for compute services startup.
Starting PowerVC 2.1.1, you have the following two options to update compute plane nodes after rolling upgrade or backup and restore of PowerVC is completed.
PowerVC UI
Rest API
Prerequisites
To update CPN by using either of the options, make sure that you perform the PowerVC rolling upgrade with the --skip-remote-node option.
In the --skip-remote-node option, remote nodes such as CPN is not updated during the rolling upgrade of PowerVC to 2.1.1.
For example, powervc-opsmgr update -c Prak -n 9.1**.***.** --skip-remote-node -s
Make sure that you have migrated the compute service of the host that is running on compute plane to the controller before you start the CPN update by using this command.
powervc-manage -o migratehmchost --hmchostname <host MTMS>
Updating compute plane node from PowerVC UI
After you complete the rolling upgrade to PowerVC 2.1.1, follow these steps to update CPN from the PowerVC UI.
Navigate to the Compute plane nodes subsection under the Hosts section.
You see a Finish update message.
Click Update.
You will see the list of compute plane nodes that are eligible for an update.
Select the ones that you want to update.
The update of the selected CPNs starts in the backend.
Updating compute plane node by using REST API
After the PowerVC rolling upgrade is completed, you can also update the compute plane nodes by using REST API.
Method: PUT
URL: https://$IP:8774/v2.1/$PROJECT_ID/compute-planes/$ID/software_update
Body: {"mgmt_version":"*latest"}
Troubleshooting
After you trigger the CPN update either by using PowerVC UI or Rest API, you can monitor the progress of the update.
During the update process, required PowerVC packages are updated in compute plane node. You can monitor the progress by using the /opt/ibm/powervc/log/powervc_install_<date-time>.log command in the compute plane node.
You can also monitor the overall update progress in the /var/log/nova/nova-api.log.
Hope this blog was useful in understanding the compute plane node update process. If you have any questions about this topic, leave your comment below.
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Blog authors
Prakhar Amule
Arun Mani
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Prakhar Amule
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