Which update in LCM can an administrator apply on a per-node basis?

Nutanix Life Cycle Manager (LCM) performs updates for both software and firmware. While software updates like AOS, AHV, and NCC are treated as cluster-wide operations to maintain version consistency, firmware updates for hardware components are managed differently. LCM inventories firmware on a per-node basis and allows an administrator to select specific nodes for updates. This granular control is essential for hardware components like the Baseboard Management Controller (BMC), as their firmware is tied to the physical node, not the logical cluster.

A. AOS: The Acropolis Operating System (AOS) is core cluster software. Updates are initiated as a cluster-wide, rolling operation to ensure all nodes run a consistent version.
C. NCC: Nutanix Cluster Check (NCC) is a health and diagnostics framework. It is updated across all nodes in the cluster simultaneously to maintain uniform health check capabilities.
D. AHV: The Acropolis Hypervisor (AHV) is updated as a cluster-wide operation. The process is rolling, but it is initiated for all hosts in the cluster, not individual nodes.

1. Nutanix Life Cycle Manager Guide (v2.6), Section: Performing Updates with Life Cycle Manager, Subsection: Updating Firmware. This section details the procedure for updating firmware, stating, "Select the checkboxes for the nodes that you want to update... LCM allows you to select one or more nodes for a firmware update." This explicitly confirms the per-node update capability for firmware components like BMC.

2. Prism Central Guide (pc-2022.9), Chapter: Software and Firmware Upgrades, Section: LCM Updates in Prism Central. The guide explains that LCM inventories components on each node. The workflow for firmware updates in the UI presents a list of nodes, from which an administrator can select one, some, or all nodes for the update operation, confirming per-node granularity.

3. Nutanix University, Nutanix Cluster Administration (NCA) v6.5 Courseware, Module: Life Cycle Manager. The course material illustrates that while software updates (AOS, AHV) are applied to the entire cluster, firmware updates (BIOS, BMC, etc.) can be targeted to selected nodes within the cluster through the LCM interface.