AMA - Software Upgrade on Catalyst 9000 Series Switches

[Brooke Hammer]

Ask Me Anything Event

Welcome to the Cisco Community Ask Me Anything conversation. Submit your questions from  Monday, November 4, 2024 through Friday, November 15, 2024. Our colleagues Rohit Chopra, Vaibhav Aggarwal, Anuraag Majumdar, Saquib Zeya, Akash Chatterjee, and Poojan Nandoria will be waiting to assist you and resolve any questions that have not been clarified, or answer any new questions that you may have. We are waiting for you!

More about this event:

Join us for an Ask Me Anything (AMA) event where you can dive deep into Cisco Catalyst 9000 Switch Upgrades!

What is it?

The Cisco Catalyst 9000 family of switches are Cisco’s lead fixed, modular and compact enterprise access, aggregation and core switching platform. They are built to transform your network to handle a hybrid world where the workplace is anywhere, endpoints could be anything, and applications are hosted all over the place.

The Catalyst 9000 family, including the new Catalyst 9000X models, continue to shape the future with ongoing innovation that helps you reimagine connections, reinforce security, and redefine the experience for your hybrid workforce big and small.

• Install & Bundle Modes: Bundle mode is the traditional method of upgrading a Catalyst Switch. You boot a .bin file that contains everything you need to run the Cisco IOS. As per traditional Cisco IOS, you have a boot statement that points to the .bin file you want to load and that gets loaded at the time of boot. The Install mode is the newer and recommended mode to run. This breaks the .bin file up into smaller .pkg files that must be loaded into memory independently of each other, and allows you to boot faster and utilize memory better. The .bin file that you download from software.cisco.com has all the .pkg files you need inside. 

• ISSU Upgrade: In-Service Software Upgrade (ISSU) is a procedure to upgrade a Switch image to a later release while the network continues to forward packets. ISSU helps network administrators avoid a network outage in a critical environment (Ex - Hospital) while performing a software upgrade.

• Auto-Upgrade: Auto-Upgrade allows the Active supervisor to upgrade the Standby supervisor regardless of what image is loaded onto the standby (bundle/install/etc). However, you have to boot the standby into some valid image in order for the process to start. 

Official Resources:

Upgrading a Stack of Catalyst 9200 Switches in Install Mode

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee87CLHPYKQ&list=PLfeWBHdC6yGsvdsMrGU8QTrzwUO69UqmH&index=2

Upgrading Catalyst 9600 Quad-Supervisor StackWise Virtual Setup with ISSU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRO8WFAtvwA&list=PLfeWBHdC6yGsvdsMrGU8QTrzwUO69UqmH&index=1

IOS Recommendation and Download for Catalyst 9K Platforms

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwxFJfP31RM&list=PLfeWBHdC6yGsvdsMrGU8QTrzwUO69UqmH&index=3

Upgrade a Standalone Catalyst 9300 switch in Install Mode

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtKVKAz7yoA&t=274s

Upgrade Cat9K with ISSU

https://youtube.com/watch?v=icE4d6knSS8

C9600 - Auto-Upgrade Procedure

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZL25qh1PJrE&t=130s

Standalone Catalyst 9000 Switch: Convert from Bundle Mode to Install Mode

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH_jxo9XJ4A

Upgrade Guide for Catalyst 9000 Switches

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/switches/catalyst-9300-series-switches/216231-upgrade-guide-for-cisco-catalyst-9000-sw.html

Join us for this insightful Ask Me Anything session and gain valuable insights into the world of Cisco Catalyst 9000 series switches upgrades. Let's uncover the solutions to your challenges and explore the vast possibilities in this dynamic field.

Note: Please post your post as a comment below no later than November 15, 2024.

Post your question below by clicking "Reply"

(Answers will be processed depending on the availability of the experts)
Don't forget to thank the expert by giving it a helpful vote!

---

Our experts

Rohit Chopra Senior Leader with Enterprise Networking TAC

Vaibhav Aggarwal People Leader with Enterprise Networking TAC

Anuraag Majumdar Technical Consulting Engineer

Saquib Zeya Technical Consulting Engineer

Akash Chatterjee Technical Consulting Engineer

Poojan Nandoria Technical Consulting Engineer

For more information, visit the Cisco Switching discussion forums . If you have questions or are experiencing technical problems with any of the Cisco products, post your question, request information or use the Cisco Community before opening a case with the TAC.

[shambhu.kumar]

When do we expect 9600 Quad SUP-2 solution for Stack-wise virtual. As of now only Quad SUP-1 solution available.

[anurmaju]

Hi @shambhu.kumar, thanks for the question. Although it is a bit out of scope of this event, we did check internally and it is in our roadmap. We'll come to know about the actual release tentatively by December 2024.

[shambhu.kumar]

Thank you for information.

[sunig]

Quad SUP RPR support on C9600X SUP-2 is planned for IOS XE 17.16.1, targeted CCO around Nov end of 2024 or early December. 

[Abe Harper]

Could you provide insight into the reliability of the ISSU upgrade procedure, considering it could be conducted during production hours?

Additionally:
What is the likelihood of failure?
If a failure occurs, what level of impact or downtime might we expect?

[pnandori]

ISSU is definitely reliable, and it is indeed meant to perform software upgrades with ongoing production.

It should be successful considering the pre-requisites, restrictions, and procedures are followed.

In case of ISSU failure, we do have auto-abort mechanism to rollback to the previous IOS.

More details on ISSU, supported platforms & releases can be found here :

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/lan/catalyst_standalones/b-in-service-software-upgrade-issu.html

The ISSU pre-requisites, workflows, checklist and rollback are explained in the below document :

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/switches/catalyst-9500-series-switches/214406-in-service-software-upgrade-issu-on-ca.html

You can also watch our Videos on ISSU upgrade procedures to gain more clarity :

Upgrade Cat9K with ISSU

https://youtube.com/watch?v=icE4d6knSS8

Upgrading Catalyst 9600 Quad-Supervisor StackWise Virtual Setup with ISSU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRO8WFAtvwA&list=PLfeWBHdC6yGsvdsMrGU8QTrzwUO69UqmH&index=1

[Renee Sharma]

We have a couple of switches in our network which is Running IOS version 16.9.3

Can we upgrade the IOS version directly to 17.9.5 ?

[sunig]

Yes, you can upgrade the device running IOS XE 16.9.3 to IOS XE 17.9.5 if the platform supports the IOS XE 17.9.5 release. However, do not expect the ISSU to work since it is a major number release upgrade. Check for the licensing model transition from Right to Use (RTU) to Smart Licensing Using policy (SLUP). 

[Renee Sharma]

Thanks for the info!!

[sazeya]

Hi Renee,

Thank you for the question. Yes, you can upgrade the switches directly from version 16.9.3 to 17.9.5. Cisco provides the flexibility to upgrade to the desired version without requiring an intermediate upgrade.

However, before proceeding with the upgrade, it is important to review the release notes and documentation for version 17.9.5 to ensure compatibility with the hardware and any specific requirements or considerations that may exist.

Additionally, I would like to make you aware of a bug CSCwh54386 which you should consider if upgrading in Bundle mode.

Bug details:

https://bst.cisco.com/bugsearch/bug/CSCwh54386?rfs=qvred

[Renee Sharma]

Thanks for the info.

[Nitesh Patel]

Where can I find a list of all bugs affected in an IOS version ?

[marce1000]

 - @Nitesh Patel  The bug search utility https://bst.cloudapps.cisco.com/bugsearch  offers various flags and options such as
                            Affecting or Fixed in Releases ,

 M.

[Nitesh Patel]

ok thanks!