Infra firmware upgrade via Auto Install - some questions

[robo0003c]

Hi!

I will upgrade from 3.1(2b) to 3.2(2d). I will follow the recommended guide: "Cisco UCS Manager Firmware Management Guide, Release 3.1"

But I have some questions:

1.) In UCS Manager under "Install Infrastructure Firmware" I get two warnings:

*"Management Interfaces Monitoring policy is disabled. To enable the policy click here." -- is it ok to leave it disabled, or is it necessary to have it enabled?

*"Check if any hardware (fabric interconnects, io-modules, servers or adapters) is unsupported in the target release" -- I have checked and all the hardware is supported so I should be able to ignore that one

2.) Do I need to disable the Management Interface on the subordinate FI? The guide says I should do that, but is it necessary?

3.) Since I am on 3.1(2b) I will not have Fabric Evacuation in the auto install. Will there be a lot of package loss when the subordinate FI reboots? Or is it so little that it dosen't matter?

4.) Should the primary role always reside on the FI A, or is it ok to leave the primary role on the FI B? Otherwise I will need to manually failover the FI:s after the update.

5.) Lastly, I have NTP on the FI:s but no time zone. As long as the time is correct that should be enough? Or do I also need a time zone? Since the guide specifies the both as required for auto install to function correctly.

Thanks!

[Walter Dey]

some General guidelines that I would recommend

- Open a preventive TAC case, where you specify the current release and target release; upload the "show tech file"; ask if their are any known hardware and / or software caveats

- the upgrade should only be done in a maintenance window; although theoretically everything could run smoothly, you never know

- do a backup and show tech before the upgrade

- verify, if your server configuration multihoming is working !

- you should configure a external NTP reference time; the clocks on the FI are not accurate and will diverge over time; therefore it is difficult to correlate time stamps of logging events

- be sure that maintenance policy is set to "ACK"

- don't bother at all about Primary / secondary; autoinstall will update the secondary first, and then ask for ACK to do the Primary.

- I never disabled the Mgt interface ??

[robo0003c]

Thank you for the answer!

[robo0003c]

After the upgrade and some answers from TAC I can complete my earlier questions:

1.) In UCS Manager under "Install Infrastructure Firmware" I get two warnings:

*"Management Interfaces Monitoring policy is disabled. To enable the policy click here." -- Ok to leave it disabled

*"Check if any hardware (fabric interconnects, io-modules, servers or adapters) is unsupported in the target release" -- Check the release notes

2.) Do I need to disable the Management Interface on the subordinate FI? The guide says I should do that, but is it necessary? Not necessary, leave it as it is

3.) Since I am on 3.1(2b) I will not have Fabric Evacuation in the auto install. Will there be a lot of package loss when the subordinate FI reboots? Or is it so little that it dosen't matter? --Not necessary with Fabric Evacuation, small amount of package loss

4.) Should the primary role always reside on the FI A, or is it ok to leave the primary role on the FI B? Otherwise I will need to manually failover the FI:s after the update. -- Dosen't matter where the role resides

5.) Lastly, I have NTP on the FI:s but no time zone. As long as the time is correct that should be enough? Or do I also need a time zone? Since the guide specifies the both as required for auto install to function correctly. -- Dosen't matter as long as you have NTP, no time zone is needed