Disable CSM for version upgrade

[Zarahelll]

Good evening to you all

I have 2 Cisco 6500 working in a Active-Standby environment.

I need to upgrade the CSM versions on both equipments, starting with the Standby CSM.

I´ve read some Cisco documents, where it's advised to shut the FT link between both equipments, but if I do so, I will have both CSM's active, which will cause me networking problems (i´m trying to do this without causing any networking unavailability).

So, I need to keep the Fault Tolerance between them while upgrading the versions, but I´m afraid that if with different versions, both CSMs will negotiate their protocols correctly.

So my question is, is there anyway to just kinda of "shutdown" a CSM before upgrading it, while keeping its original configuration? In a scenario like "Ok, so now I´m going to upgrade the Standby CSM, I will deactivate it, so it will never become active until I finish the upgrade on the equipments...after I finish upgrading both equipments, I re-activate the CSM, which will assume its standby role imediately"

Is there any way of doing this?

And if not, what suggestions do you have, for upgrading the CSMs safely without causing any networking unavailability?

Best regards to you all

[Daniel Arrondo Ostiz]

Good afternoon,

I'm not sure what documents you read, but, I find this recommendation to shut down the FT link very strange. It is in fact recommended to do the opposite.

Even if the two CSM are running different versions, the devices should still be able to stay in a redundant scenario, allowing you to upgrade the standby, force a failover and upgrade the primary.

Regards

Daniel

[Zarahelll]

Daniel

Thank you for your reply.

My main concern is the " should still be able to stay in a redundant scenario"...focusing on the "should"; these equipments are giving service to very critical business core platforms of my company (where killing them even for minutes) results in the loss of some serious $$

What I need is a bullet proof procedure (or the closest to it) to do the version upgrade without causing any glitches on the network.

Hence, my question for a "disable CSM" command (or similar) before upgrading the version.

Best regards

[Zarahelll]

Anyone?

Any feedback on a bullet proof procedure to upgrade the CSM versions without risk of causing network unavailability is apreciated...