Upgrade WLC HA pair 7.4.110.0 to 7.6.130.0

[serotonin888]

Hi

I'll be upgrading a HA pair of 5508's from 7.4.110.0 to 7.6.130.0. The documentation suggests that I just need to upgrade the active and this code is copied to the standby. Then simply reboot. After this verify that the active is not the standby HA WLC. Verify all AP's have rejoined and upgraded.

I also need to want to upgrade the FUS image after this.

Has anyone had any issues with upgrading HA pairs?

Or would it be better to break HA and upgrade each of them seperately then recreate the HA pair (not something I really want to have to do).

Any other suggestions\precautions to reduce the risk of issues?

I plan to create backups before and after.

I'll also use "show ap cdp nei all" to get a list of AP's and where they are connected to verify they all rejoin the WLC and upgrade.

Thanks in advance

[Leo Laohoo]

Upgrading the firmware is straight-forward.  The firmware is pushed to the standby. 

The upgrade of the FUS, however, ain't.  You need to break the HA pair. 

However, you could try this: 

Upgrade the FUS without breaking the HA.  Then you invoke the force switchover.  Then upgrade the FUS and force another switchover.

[serotonin888]

Thanks Leo,

But according to this document its not required break HA do the FUS upgrade?

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/technotes/7-5/High_Availability_DG.html#pgfId-43571

"The FUS image can be upgraded while the controllers have HA enabled. The secondary controller will get upgraded just like it does when upgrading the regular code. However, when you initiate the reboot on the primary controller both controllers will be unreachable until the FUS upgrade completes on both the active and the standby in the HA pair. This process will take around 30 to 40 minutes to complete just like in a non-HA FUS upgrade."

I have a maintainence window for the activity so having both down during the FUS upgrade is not an issue. My only concern is that if something goes wrong to both WLC's during the FUS upgrade I might have 2 dead WLC's and no backup plan !

Thanks

[serotonin888]

Just following up after doing the upgrade.

The FUS upgrade is copied to the standby automatically and applied when the HA pair is rebooted.

Thanks

[Dhiresh Yadav]

Hi ,

Yeah , it will be copied. But yes , in very rare cases , sometimes FUS upgrade fails for example power break down while the FUS upgrade is in progress. So, it should not be rebooted due to any reason for more than 30 minutes , but it works fine.

Since you are really scared to do that in one shot and for 100% reliability and also assuming that you have only two WLCs and both are in Ha:

> Do FUS upgrade if really needed.

> Just break the HA and do FUS upgrade separately so that you have one WLC intact even if something like power shutdown happens.

But HA upgrade works as per theory in the LAB.

Regards

Dhiresh

**Please rate helpful posts**