Simplifying Dark Site Upgrades with Nutanix LCM DUO
By Cameron Stockwell, Director Product Management, Nutanix
Sachin Keswani, Senior Product Manager, Nutanix
Ruhi Sehgal, Product Marketing, Nutanix
For organizations that operate under the strictest security protocols, maintaining a dark site infrastructure is non-negotiable. Government, defense, and financial institutions rely on these dark site environments to protect their most sensitive data and provide digital sovereignty.
“Data sovereignty is not a buzzword, it’s survival,” Cosson said in a January 2025 interview with Computer Weekly.
However, this approach has historically come with a significant operational tradeoff in the industry: lifecycle management becomes a complex and manual ordeal. Keeping software and firmware current in a disconnected environment often involves administrators manually cross-referencing dependencies, downloading countless files, and painstakingly transferring them into the secure zone. This process is not only inefficient but also fraught with the risk of human error, which can lead to failed upgrades, system downtime, and potential security vulnerabilities.
With the release of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) 7.5, Nutanix is introducing LCM Dark Site Upgrade Orchestrator (DUO), a new feature specifically engineered to help eliminate these challenges. LCM DUO streamlines and simplifies the upgrade process for dark site deployments.
What Is a Dark Site and Why Is It So Hard to Upgrade?
Dark sites are data centers not connected to the Internet, often used for security, compliance, or operational reasons. While they offer strong isolation, they can also introduce friction when it comes to upgrades. Organizations in dark site environments need to manage updates for dozens of components, ranging from hypervisors and file servers to Kubernetes® engines and security dashboards, to keep systems secure and protected from ransomware attacks.
Each component may have its own compatibility requirements, and without automated dependency checks or guided workflows, the risk of manual errors is high.
Introducing LCM Dark Site Upgrade Orchestrator
Built into the existing Nutanix MCL (Multicluster LCM) framework, Nutanix LCM DUO systematically simplifies the entire upgrade process and increases upgrade reliability for dark site environments. By replacing cumbersome manual workflows with a better streamlined and orchestrated approach, LCM DUO empowers organizations to maintain a robust security posture without sacrificing operational efficiency.
Nutanix LCM DUO addresses a critical need for organizations that prioritize complete control over their data and operations, a core tenet of digital sovereignty. It allows organizations to operate seamlessly and securely in disconnected and dark site environments, enabling them to keep their Nutanix infrastructure current with the latest security patches and features without compromising network isolation policies.
Getting Started
Seamless Upgrades in Complete Isolation
For organizations operating in fully disconnected, dark-site environments, maintaining up-to-date infrastructure no longer has to be a complex, manual chore. Here’s how to leverage the new upgrade process:
Generate Upgrade Plan: Use LCM DUO through LCM Multi-Cluster (MCL) to select your desired upgrades and generate a tailored upgrade plan with a YAML file as the output.
Download Binaries: An offline script automatically produces the precise list of software and firmware binaries from the Nutanix Portal.
Transfer to Dark Site: Download the specified files externally and transfer them into the dark site environment.
Execute Upgrades: LCM MCL ingests the files and orchestrates the upgrades across the selected clusters.
This new workflow keeps cluster data in the dark site environment, balancing the duality of limiting version mismatching and human error while upholding strict data isolation policies.
What Makes Nutanix LCM DUO Powerful?
LCM DUO delivers a simplified experience by combining powerful capabilities into a single upgrade solution:
Nutanix Compatibility Bundle: A comprehensive Nutanix Compatibility Bundle contains all the metadata and dependency information to ensure successful upgrades.
Precision and Control: Generate upgrade packages tailored to the specific needs of each cluster, so you only download the necessary binaries.
Automate at Scale: Full support for v4 APIs so you can integrate LCM DUO into existing automation scripts and workflows for utmost efficiency.
Built for Scale: LCM DUO is engineered to scale alongside LCM Muli-Cluster to manage upgrades for the large and complex deployments.
Enhanced Security and Serviceability: Benefit from comprehensive logs, alerts, and audit trails designed for effective troubleshooting without requiring live access.
Looking Ahead
By prioritizing simplicity, automation, and customer autonomy, Nutanix is refining what dark site upgrades can look like. Whether you're managing a single cluster or a sprawling infrastructure, LCM DUO aims to make upgrades feel effortless even in the most isolated environments.
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