Upgrading MDS 9148 switches in a production environment

[mfwilkinson]

I have two MDS 9148 switches in a meshed SAN fabric. The storage system is an EMC Clariion with four FC connections to each switch. Each server has an FC connection to each switch (multipathed). So every host has redundant connectivity through the fabric. They are both running NX-OS 5.0(1a) and I'd like to upgrade them to 6.2.1. I'd like to upgrade them in turn without loosing the storage system connectivity. I have not done this before. Do I need to follow a procedure to put the switch in maintenance mode (is there such a thing) to cause all paths to migrate to the other switch, prior to upgrading? Or do I just load on the new firmware and reboot? (generally I'm a comannd line user)

Thanks!

[dynamoxxx · Accepted solution]

typically all nx-os upgrades in non-disruptive, obviusly you still want to upgrade one fabric at a time. Always look over the release notes to verify that your cards/chasis support the version. For example there are some code upgrades that require an intermidiate code upgrade (upgrading from 4.2.x to 5.2.x).  Looks like for your code you can go directly to 6.2.1. While these upgrade are non-disruptive i aleays double check PowerPath (or native MPIO) to make sure multipathing is working correctly (and licensed).  Good Luck

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/switches/datacenter/mds9000/sw/6_2/release/notes/nx-os/mds_nxos_rn_621.html