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5508 WLC in HA/SSO upgrade path

I have my 5508's in a HA/SSO pair and am being faced with an upgrade from 8.3.135.0 to 8.3.140.0. Does the upgrade occur with NO network downtime, or do I need to plan an outage?

The upgrade document doesn't cover any HA deployments.

Roughly 350 WAP on the pair; mix of 1142, 3502, 3602, and 3702 devices.

Thank you for your help.

1 Accepted Solution

Accepted Solutions

Zechariah,

I understand, but the process has not changed since the release of that document. Below is a listing from the 8.3 configuration guide regarding the upgrade process in an HA environment.

Cisco Wireless Controller Configuration Guide, Release 8.3 - High Availability [Cisco Wireless LAN Controller Software…

The following is a list of some software upgrade scenarios:

  • A software upgrade on the active controller ensures the upgrade of the standby-hot controller.
  • An in-service upgrade is not supported. Therefore, you should plan your network downtime before you upgrade the controllers in an HA environment.
  • Rebooting the active controller after a software upgrade also reboots the standby-hot controller.
  • We recommend that both active and standby-hot controllers have the same software image in the backup before running the config boot backup command. If both active and standby-hot controllers have different software images in the backup, and if you run the config boot backup command in the active controller, both the controllers reboot with their respective backup images breaking the HA pair due to a software mismatch.
  • A schedule reset applies to both the controllers in an HA environment. The peer controller reboots a minute before the scheduled time expires on the active controller.
  • You can reboot the standby-hot controller from the active controller by entering the reset peer-system command if the scheduled reset is not planned. If you reset only the standby-hot controller with this command, any unsaved configurations on the standby-hot controller is lost. Therefore, ensure that you save the configurations on the active controller before you reset the standby-hot controller.
  • A preimage download is reinitiated if an SSO is triggered at the time of the image transfer.
  • Only debug and show commands are allowed on the standby-hot controller.
  • After a switchover, if a peer controller has a controller software release that is prior to Release 7.5, all the mobility clients are deauthenticated.


Thanks!

Darren


View solution in original post

6 Replies 6

Darren Roback
Level 5
Level 5

See this document. You'll need to reload the APs and controllers so downtime will be unavoidable.

High Availability (SSO) Deployment Guide - Cisco

That document is from 2015 and 7.3/4 release. Wasn't sure if 8.3 code had matured enough to do an in-place upgrade.

-Z

Zechariah,

I understand, but the process has not changed since the release of that document. Below is a listing from the 8.3 configuration guide regarding the upgrade process in an HA environment.

Cisco Wireless Controller Configuration Guide, Release 8.3 - High Availability [Cisco Wireless LAN Controller Software…

The following is a list of some software upgrade scenarios:

  • A software upgrade on the active controller ensures the upgrade of the standby-hot controller.
  • An in-service upgrade is not supported. Therefore, you should plan your network downtime before you upgrade the controllers in an HA environment.
  • Rebooting the active controller after a software upgrade also reboots the standby-hot controller.
  • We recommend that both active and standby-hot controllers have the same software image in the backup before running the config boot backup command. If both active and standby-hot controllers have different software images in the backup, and if you run the config boot backup command in the active controller, both the controllers reboot with their respective backup images breaking the HA pair due to a software mismatch.
  • A schedule reset applies to both the controllers in an HA environment. The peer controller reboots a minute before the scheduled time expires on the active controller.
  • You can reboot the standby-hot controller from the active controller by entering the reset peer-system command if the scheduled reset is not planned. If you reset only the standby-hot controller with this command, any unsaved configurations on the standby-hot controller is lost. Therefore, ensure that you save the configurations on the active controller before you reset the standby-hot controller.
  • A preimage download is reinitiated if an SSO is triggered at the time of the image transfer.
  • Only debug and show commands are allowed on the standby-hot controller.
  • After a switchover, if a peer controller has a controller software release that is prior to Release 7.5, all the mobility clients are deauthenticated.


Thanks!

Darren


Thanks Team. One day they will support in-service I hope.

No kidding. The wireless team should have a meeting with the team in charge of the ASA, which has supported zero-downtime HA upgrades for well over a decade. I'm sure there's some technical reason why it's so much more difficult with a WLC... oh well.

sudhir.gupta1
Level 1
Level 1

Hi Zechariah,

i recommend you, take a downtime and do the upgrade...

Rgds/Sudhir

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