ISE 2.2 to 2.4 migration tips

[Madura Malwatte]

I am in the processing of migrating my current ISE 2.2 to 2.4. 2.4 nodes will be deployed in parallel to the existing 2.2 nodes and then migrated to the new by taking backup and restoring on the new nodes. The new PSN's will maintain the same hostname and IP addresses (these nodes obviously will not in deployed in parallel). Is there any gotcha's I need to be aware of? Or tips / pre-checks before migration?

[Francesco Molino]

Hi

The way you're doing is ok but I would have done a different way to avoid backup/restore.

The process I use and which works well is:

1. Install a new ISE 2.2 node
2. Add it to your existing cluster (for db sync)
3. When sync is done, remove it from the cluster. This node will be switched to a standalone node with the full db (no need to backup/restore the full config and face some weird issues)
4. Once out of the cluster, upgrade this single standalone node to ISE 2.4
5. Then, switch this node into an ADM node and just add your new servers into this newly created cluster.

When doing this process, it's a bit faster than backup/restore process and never had any issues. 

[Damien Miller]

See and I would do it the way mmalwatte laid out in his original post. I've always had an upgrade take longer than a backup restore. Half dozen of one, half dozen of the other.

[Francesco Molino]

I said this was the good way to go but I also wanted to give another option which doesn't add any risks nor time.

[Madura Malwatte]

Hi Francesco,

Thanks for the suggestion. I will keep this option in mind, it sounds good. Might have to try it in the lab and see how it goes first.

[Aravind Ravichandran]

Before upgrading the node from 2.2 to 2.4. Please run URT on secondary Admin node to validate & prevent any upgrade failures.

[Madura Malwatte]

Wasn't aware that something like URT existed, but thanks for letting me know. Will definitely try it.