Nexus 5596 upgrade

[zheepern0826]

Hi All, 

I have a pair of Nexus 5596 running in vpc with old firmware( 5.1) and there are 8 fex connected to the N5K.  Basically the N5K is only used for basic layer 2 function only (without FC). 

We are planning to upgrade the N5K to the version 7.3 and i have gone through the release note. If follow the release note, we will need to follow below upgrade path. 

5.1(3)N1(1) -> 5.1(3)N2(1) -> 5.2(1)N1(5) -> 7.0(6)N1(1) -> 7.1(4)N1(1) -> 7.3(3)N1(1)

It will take quite some times if i follow upgrade path. I tried googled around and saw someone mention about direct upgrade from version 5.1 to 7.3 to reduce the maintenance windows. 

Please advise if this is possible to do a direct upgrade and is there anything need to take note for this direct upgrade ? 

Thank you very much in advance. 

Eric. 

[nazimkha · Accepted solution]

It would be a disruptive upgrade and you have to schedule a maintenance window
Here is the procedure
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/datacenter/nexus5500/sw/upgrade/733_N1_N1/n5500_upgrade_downgrade_733_n1_1.html#pgfId-766296

[mojafri]

Eric, 

Just to add what was said in recent response. If you go for disruptive upgrade, you gonna lose most of the cong!!! 

https://bst.cloudapps.cisco.com/bugsearch/bug/CSCul22703

1)Loss of FEX HIF configurations
2)Breakout configuration not applied
3)FC ports on unified ports not applied
4)Mgmt0 can also be in "shutdown force" if FEX HIFs had shutdown configured prior to upgrade.
5)VLAN database is lost when running VTP in client/server mode.

Regards,

MJ
 

[zheepern0826]

Thanks Nazimkha & MJ for the quick reply.

I'm looking at section "Upgrading a Dual-Homed FEX Acces Layer" in the 7.3(3)N1(1) relase note and having some question.

1. In the release note, it mention to pre-provision the FEX. Can i know what is the purpose of this steps and is it nessasary or we skip this ?

2. When i am installing the firmware on the vPC primary N5K and reboot, the FEX will get the new firmware and failover to vPC secondary N5K. It will not use the new firmware until we manually reload FEX from vPC secondary N5K right ?

About the bug that might face during disruptive upgrade:
3.1 For the FEX host interface (HIF), is it means we might lost the configuration for the fex and will need to reconfigure all the FEX ?

Sample fex configuration:

interface port-channel101
switchport mode fex-fabric
fex associate 101
vpc 101

interface Ethernet2/1
switchport mode fex-fabric
fex associate 101
channel-group 101

3.2 Regarding the breakout configuration, mind to explain what is this about ? I tried to google around and found below configuration guide for the breakout. If this is the correct breakout configuration, then we are not using breakout configuration in our environment
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/datacenter/sw/6_x/nx-os/interfaces/configuration/guide/b-Cisco-Nexus-7000-Series-NX-OS-Interfaces-Configuration-Guide-6x-Book/conf-int-breakout-mode.html#task_278FB9CE94D44046AD0CC29E119B6909

Nexus is still very new to me so appreciate you guys to guide me through this.

Thank you very much in advance.
Eric