Upgrade UCS 6200 Series Fabric Interconnects to Cisco UCS 6454

[Hamel]

Hi all, we are going to upgrade our existing 6248UP Fabric Interconnects to new 6454 FIs and are currently planning the migration. I have read through the migration guide at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/ucs-manager/GUI-User-Guides/Fabric-Interconnect-Migration/4-0/b_Migrating_from_6200_to_6400/b_Migrating_from_6200_to_6400_chapter_010.html and was wondering if anyone has gone through the migration themselves?

The main questions I have is:

- How long does the migration take? I am estimating around 4 hours per FI. We would need to run some functionality tests to ensure the secondary 6454 is fully operational before we migrate the primary 6248UP.

- The guide states that this is a one way process, i.e. you cannot go back to the 6248UP FIs. Are there any rollback options if it was found that there were issues bringing up/configuring the secondary 6454 FI?

Many Thanks

[itm.i11.team]

Hi Hamel,

I did some time ago a migration from 6248 to 6296. Although this is not similar to your planed action, the steps are somehow comparable.

- As far as I can remember it took me about 2 hours per FI and it was running very smooth.

- If you encounter problems with the secondary 6454 I guess you could just replace it again with your old secondary 6248UP. Maybe do a factory reset of the secondary 6248 FI first before connecting to the primary. I think that would be a safe way to roll back.

Regards

 Martin

[Hamel]

Thanks Martin, the key is knowing how to recover to a good state if there were any issues. The bit about the upgrade being irreversible worries me but that may simply be a reference that you can't move back to 6200s once the 6454 are fully deployed and functioning.

It's a very risk-averse team so a full rollback sequence is required before the change can be approved. I don't envisage any issues with the upgrade but I have to plan for things going wrong!