UCS C220 - Firmware Update Questions

[Jason.Green4918]

I'm new to Cisco hardware, and I'm working on a project where I have to upgrade firmware on some UCS C220 M3 servers. Currently the servers are at version 1.5(4d). The current recommended version of firmware is 2.0(9c). UCS Manager is not an option in this case, so I'll have to update each server manually by mounting the ISO.

My question is, is there a certain upgrade path to follow, or can I just upgrade to the latest and greatest version of firmware? With 18 versions of firmware between my current and the newest versions of firmware, I wanted to make sure I didn't need to follow a specific path. Hopefully don't have to upgrade each server 18 times.

Thanks for any help that can be provided!

Jason.

[Walter Dey]

Hi Jason

seems to be standalone C-Series server. Have a look at

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/servers-unified-computing/ucs-c-series-rack-servers/products-installation-guides-list.html

Walter.

[Jason.Green4918]

Walter,

Thank you for the reply. I have read through these guides, however, they do not tell me much about my particular dilemma. My particular question is whether or not I can upgrade directly from firmware version 1.5 (4d) to version 2.0(9c) on my C-220 servers. Does Cisco support this practice, or is there a documented upgrade path that I should follow?

Thanks!

Jason

[Kirk J]

There are specific HUU install guides, and these do reference minimum existing CIMC and BIOS version requirements.

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/c/sw/lomug/b_huu_2_0_6/b_huu_2_0_6_chapter_010.html

I haven't found the 2.0(9) version yet, but 2.0(6) references 2.0(3i) bios and CIMC versions which would seem to infer that 2.0(3i) is a required step along the path to 2.0(9).

The 2.03 HUU guide (http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/c/sw/lomug/2-0-x/b_huu_2_0_3/b_huu_2_0_3_chapter_010.html) list 1.5(4e) as minimum requirement, which you meet.

So it appears you may want to hit 2.03i first, before jumping up to 2.0(9) range.

Thanks,

Kirk

[Jason.Green4918]

Hello Kirk,

Thank you for the reply. That is exactly the kind of information I was looking for. You mention that I meet the qualifications for 2.03 since it has minimum need of 1.5(4e), but my servers are only running 1.5(4d). To me that appears to be one generation older. Would I need to upgrade them to 1.5(4e) first to proceed with that path?

Thank you sir!

Jason

[Kirk J]

I checked the differences between the two releases (d and e) and see nothing that would keep you from updating from 1.54d to 2.03i.

If you have 100 of these you need to upgrade, obviously you'll want to do a couple, and confirm success, before launching en mass.

One of the resolved caveats in 2.03i is a fix for a CIMC memory leak.  You might want to restart the CIMC prior to booting the HUU iso for the upgrade, to make sure you don't bump into one the upgrade failures we occasionally see because of a low memory condition in the CIMC.

Thanks,

Kirk..

[Jason.Green4918]

I think I have my upgrade path all worked out and approved by my customer. Thank you for all the help Kirk!

One more question... I know the documentation mentions using the KVM to perform mount the ISO and perform the upgrade. Is that the recommended practice? When it comes to upgrading firmware, especially over the LAN/WAN, the idea of doing it through remote KVM raises concerns in my mind. If others are doing it and it's the preferred practice then that's the way I go. I just thought I would ask now.

Thanks again Kirk for all your guidance!

Jason

[Kirk J]

Greetings.

I believe the majority of our customer use the virtual media via KVM.

There are timeout issues you can hit if the workstation/web interface running on a workstation has a relatively low connection rate to the end CIMC where the virtual media  is being streamed to.

We highly recommend having some kind of 'jump' server on the same Lan, where you would remote/RDP into the jump server,, and the HUU/ISO would be mounted from the web session on the local jump server.

Using local USB based media, can reduce the amount of overall upgrade time, but requires somebody physically on site plugging in the media.

Thanks,

Kirk

[Jason.Green4918]

That's exactly how our network is laid out with the jump server on same VLAN. I should be ok. Looks like others in the organization have upgraded over the LAN. I am just being uber paranoid I guess having seeing firmware updates go bad before. 

Sounds like I should be good to go. Thanks Kirk!

[Kirk J]

I'm not familiar with the costs, but we do have the IMC supervisor, that helps manage the stand alone C series servers (M3s or above), and can coordinate remote firmware updates ;)

If you have a good number of rack servers, might worth talking to your Cisco account team about.

Kirk...

[baselzind]

im facing the same issue , please tell me did you upgrade from 2.03i to 2.0(9c) directly or u had to jump from another versions in the middle?

[Jason.Green4918]

I got my issue resolved. I started with my servers at 1.5(4e) and went with the following upgrade path:

1.5(4e) > 2.0(1b) > 2.0(4c) > 2.0(9f)

Was able to get them up to date with three total HUU updates per server. Everything is working great now.

Jason