Can I put 1st Gen and 3rd Gen APIC in one cluster?

[m1xed0s]

The reason I want to do so is for APIC hardware upgrade. I have 3-node APIC-M1 cluster and I need to upgrade/migrate to 3-node APIC-M3 cluster. During the migration process, will the cluster be healthy with a mix of the M1 and M3 cluster?

The firmware images on 1st Gen and 3rd Gen controllers are the same. However I did not find any document about mix-generation APIC hardware for a cluster for production...

[Sergiu.Daniluk · Accepted solution]

Hi @m1xed0s 

For the hardware upgrade purpose, I do not think there should be any problems mixing M1 and M3, as long as you run the same ACI version on all APICs. One good option to perform the hardware upgrade is using standby APIC. There is this nice article written recently by Soumitra (one of the ACI TLs) https://unofficialaciguide.com/2020/04/22/using-standby-apic-to-move-apic-or-replace-apic/

Also, another thing you should pay attention is the fabric ports of APIC M3.

There are 4 fabric ports on APIC M3: has 4 ports, port-1, port-2, port-3, and port-4 from left to right. Port-1 and port-2 is one pair, corresponding to eth2-1 on APIC and port-3 and port-4 is another pair, corresponding to eth2-2 on APIC. Only one connection is allowed for each pair. For example, you can connect one cable to either port-1 or port-2, and connect another cable to either port-3 or port-4 (do not connect two cables on any pair).

Stay safe,

Sergiu

[m1xed0s]

Thanks!!! I did read the standby option and I am aware of the 3rd APIC default port bundling...

[Sergiu.Daniluk]

Than you are good to go! Good luck with the hw upgrade ^_^

[JaiminLaljibhaiKakadiya9979]

we are planning to replace M1 APICs to M3, I read the standby apic option, in that option is it necessary for standby apic to have a different name or it can have same name as the apic we plan to replace? is there any cisco document for such hardware upgrade?

[Robert Burns]

If you're simply trying to replace APICs, the just use the Decommission process to replace them 1 by 1.  The standby APIC is to add another layer of availability (being able to replace a failed APIC quickly).  Using the Standby APIC option, the 'standby' controller will take over the name and nodeID of the APIC it replaces (once promoted).

Robert