Upgrade questions about Prime Infrastructure 1.1.1.24 to 1.3

[sstephens1]

               My existing NCS is installed with the small deployment and I'll have a total of 94 AP's but we are installing a new data center and replacing the existing 2 WISM blades for 2 new 5508 WLCs and added 20 more AP'S which will total 114 AP's and 4 controllers. The old WISMs blades and new 5508s will be up together until we migrate exisitng AP's to the new 5508s, so do I need to install the medium deployment since Table for Scaling Prime Infrastructure states:

Medium: 500 Total. The mix of devices may included up to:

     Wired devices: 300

     Controllers: 5

     Autonomous AP's: 300

     Unified AP's: 300

Small Deployments are for a total of 250 devices "with up to" 100 Unified AP's and 2 controllers?? 

Also as part of the download of software for PI 1.3 it   includes Automated Deployment Gateway is this a required piece to install for PI??  We don't use Cisco works so I'm not installing the LMS piece. 

thank you,

Sandra

[Rob Johnson]

Sandra,

If you have 1.1.1.24 installed, what patch do you have applied?

Please run a show application to see patches installed---

[Rob Johnson]

Sandra,

Regarding your question:::

Also as part of the download of software for PI 1.3 it   includes Automated Deployment Gateway is this a required piece to install for PI??  We don't use Cisco works so I'm not installing the LMS piece.

The Automated Deployment Gateway or Plug and Play Gateway is not a required piece for PI...

Also, I'm not clear if you will be upgrading your existing system or spinning up a new one....

[sstephens1]

I have not installed any patches.

CiscoNCS/admin#

CiscoNCS/admin# show application

NCS             Cisco Prime Network Control System

I'm trying to determine if I can simply do an upgrade for small deployment to 1.3 or if I need to spin up a new vm for medium deployment.  My exiting install is a small deployment.

thanks,

Sandra

[Rob Johnson]

You could take either route

1) Upgrade the existing

2) Take a backup of the old then restore it into the new

[sstephens1]

so the small deployment can handle 4 contollers?  That is all I want to confirm. 

thanks,

sandra

[Rob Johnson]

The specs say 2 WLCs for small and 5 for Medium but I don't always agree w/ the specs guidelines.

For example, the Professional version for PI 2.0 calls for 1.2 Terabytes....

As for your situation, things will run just fine w/ a small OVA as for resources.  You very well may have to eventually bump up from 200GB to 300GB but that is a super easy thing to do.

[sstephens1]

Great.  I'll double check the hard drive size on the VM but I don't hve access to the patches or the upgrade software to 1.3.xxxx.

We purchase 1.3 software but in the edelivery I can only have access to the full ova files. 

Is there any way to get these software downloads?

thanks,

Sandra

[Rob Johnson]

So your plan is to upgrade your existing system and not to spin-up a new box then restore a backup from the existing?

[sstephens1]

Yes, I would prefering to simply upgrade to 1.3 since the Licensing is such a pain.  I know cisco Recommends spinning up a new box.  I guess if it went terrible wrong I would request a new VM and do a clean install. If you can't get me the software download, we are a waiting to hear back from our Cisco rep about getting some support. 

thanks,

Sandra

[Rob Johnson]

Sandra,

I will publish the NCS patch as well as the upgrade bundle to your CCO ID---

What is your CCO ID?

[sstephens1]

sstephens1 is my cco ID. 

Hey thanks so much for all your help!!

[Rob Johnson]

The patch file and upgrade bundle were just published so you'll be receiving an email any minute if you haven't already

Here are the steps to do the upgrade:::

1) take VM snapshot

2) install patch

-ncs stop

patch install ncs_1_1_1_24-Update.13.4.tar.gz

3) take backup of NCS

-taking from gui is preferable as it's easier

4) restore backup from console (it's very important to run from the VM console)

-ncs stop

restore backup-filename repository application NCS

5) run application upgrade

-application upgrade

application upgrade PI-upgrade-bundle-1.3.0.20.tar.gz

[Rob Johnson]

Sandra.

I can't stress how important it is that once you've installed the patch for NCS 1.1.1.24 that you take a backup then do a restore.

It's also very important you run the restore from the console and not an SSH session so the session doesn't time out.

If you don't then chances are VERY high the NCS services won't start once you've ran the application upgrade command...

just saying:::

[sstephens1]

Will do Rob.  I'll follow your instructions. 

I've downloaded the software patch and upgrade software already.  I plan on attempting this upgrade  this week.

thanks again for all your help!

Sandra