Server1 runs Windows Server 2022 and is a member of a three‑node failover cluster. You must upgrade Server1 to Windows Server 2025 while minimizing cluster downtime. What should you perform first?

To minimize downtime during an upgrade of a cluster node, you should first pause the node and drain its workloads. This action migrates all active roles and virtual machines from Server1 to other nodes in the cluster, ensuring continuous service availability. After Server1 is drained, it can be safely upgraded without affecting the cluster's operations. Evicting Server1 from the cluster would remove it permanently, requiring a re-addition after the upgrade, which is less efficient for a rolling upgrade scenario. Taking the entire cluster offline would cause significant downtime, which contradicts the requirement to minimize it. Updating the functional level of the cluster is a post-upgrade step, not the initial action for a rolling upgrade.