System Software Installation

To prepare for installing the system software on a ztC Endurance system, you must:

After you have performed these tasks, you can install the system software as described in Installing the System Software.

The software installation process requires 30 minutes and involves the following general steps:

  1. Power on the system to boot the pre-installed Standby OS in both compute modules.

    Note: The Standby OS is preinstalled in an internal NVMe drive inside each compute module. In general, you need to access the Standby OS only for installation or troubleshooting purposes.

  2. Log on to the Standby OS on compute module B.

  3. Run the BMC configuration script to configure network settings for the Base Management Controllers (BMCs), which are required to support the software installation.

  4. Run the software installation script. Enter additional network settings, passwords, and the ESXi media location required for the software installation.

  5. Start the software installation. The installation script running on compute module B remotely initiates the installation process on the A side of the system (compute module A, storage module A, and I/O module A). The script automatically installs ESXi, deploys the ztC Endurance Management VM, and begins configuring the system software for redundancy.

  6. The installation script reboots compute module A up to three times while it completes the configuration steps, begins mirroring the pair of system disks, and then begins mirroring any other pairs of data disks in the system. (Any additional disks in the system still require configuration to create datastores after installation.)

  7. Upon successful installation of the system, the installation script displays the current system settings as well as the addresses for the ztC Endurance console and the ESXi Host Client.

After the software installation, you need to perform some post-installation tasks, as described in Post-Installation Tasks.