Solved: Upgrade ASA 5510 from 7.0(6) to 8.2(5)

lauracgc_cisco · ‎08-19-2011

Hi, I want to upgrade my ASA 5510 from version 7.0(6) to 8.2(5). Reading the release notes for 8.2(5) it says the DRAM requirement is 256MB unless you have high CPU usage. Also it says I need to upgrade through the major releases, from 7.0(x) to 7.1(x) and 7.1(x) to 7.2(x) and then from 7.2(x) to 8.2(x). The questions are:

- My ASA has 256MB of RAM and 68% of free memory, would you think it will run the 8.2(5) version with no problem?

- When making the upgrades to the major releases, is there any consideration regarding the configuration file? Or the versions to use for the 7.1 and 7.2 versions?

- Would you recomend making all the upgrades in one maintanance window? How much time could it take?

Jennifer Halim · ‎08-19-2011

- It should not be a problem with 256 MB when running version 8.2.x unless the ASA is passing high load of traffic. However, if you decided to upgrade to version 8.3 and above in the future, it definitely require 1 GB of DRAM on ASA 5510.

- There is minor configuration changes from version 7.0 to 8.2. However, if you are running SSL VPN on version 7.x, then the client needs to be changed to AnyConnect SSL VPN. However, if you decided to upgrade to version 8.3 and above, there are major code changes.

- I don't see a problem upgrading all under one maintenance window. How much time it could take is something that I couldn't answer. It really depends on your environment and as you know with any upgrades/changes, it can go smoothly or can go horribly wrong, so i can't estimate on your behalf. If everything goes smoothly, I don't see it being too long, basically, upload the software to the ASA, change the boot image, and reload. And you would need to apply this to all the release mention in the release notes. I would normally like to estimate longer than shorter time (to give you enough time to rollback, just in case it goes wrong).

Hope this helps.

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Jennifer Halim · ‎08-19-2011

- It should not be a problem with 256 MB when running version 8.2.x unless the ASA is passing high load of traffic. However, if you decided to upgrade to version 8.3 and above in the future, it definitely require 1 GB of DRAM on ASA 5510.

- There is minor configuration changes from version 7.0 to 8.2. However, if you are running SSL VPN on version 7.x, then the client needs to be changed to AnyConnect SSL VPN. However, if you decided to upgrade to version 8.3 and above, there are major code changes.

- I don't see a problem upgrading all under one maintenance window. How much time it could take is something that I couldn't answer. It really depends on your environment and as you know with any upgrades/changes, it can go smoothly or can go horribly wrong, so i can't estimate on your behalf. If everything goes smoothly, I don't see it being too long, basically, upload the software to the ASA, change the boot image, and reload. And you would need to apply this to all the release mention in the release notes. I would normally like to estimate longer than shorter time (to give you enough time to rollback, just in case it goes wrong).

Hope this helps.

lauracgc_cisco · ‎08-22-2011

Thanks for your answer Jennifer, for now I'm not using SSL VPN so I guess the upgrade will go just fine.