Suggested upgrade path for older Sourcefire devices/manager

[EverythingBagel62093]

Let's say that I have a few Sourcefire 3D Sensors (8130) and a Sourcefire Management Center that are on an OS that is before 5.4, one of them being on a version that's a bit older. What are the suggested upgrade paths for these devices? I know that I can't have a FMC that's multiple versions higher than the devices for management purposes. If one of the 3D sensors are below 5.0 (I know, not ideal), can I upgrade that to 5.3 or 5.4 directly if I manage it with the Management Center?

As I understand it, it would be ideal to bring everything up to the same OS version, before incrementally updating the FMC and 8130 back and forth until 6.6.

[Marvin Rhoads · Accepted solution]

If there are not significant policies and customization of the setup, it would be far easier to just reimage and rebuild everything.

To do the incremental upgrades from 5.4 x or older will require days of effort as well as a TAC case to get access to the older images required in the 5.x range that are prerequisites for the more modern versions.

The 8130s are past end-of-sales and you won't be able to upgrade beyond 6.4.x on them in any case.

[rick11]

Hello,

currently having Cisco Firepower Management Center, does this need to be upgraded or only the sensors on ASA needs to be upgraded to FTD version?
Thank you!
R

[Marvin Rhoads]

@rick11 Generally any FMC can only manage devices at of below the same version. There is a compatibility guide that tells us how many releases older a given FMC can manage:

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/security/firepower/compatibility/firepower-compatibility.html#id_103493