Online Upgrade/Swap Command

[f1fanatic]

Hi all,

I am du to upgrade a cluster of 8 3300's, from MCD4 to MCD5, in the process performing RDN migration.

I have migrated a few 3300's before this is not my question, to speed up the process i was hoping to be able to perform an online upgrade to the same software release. So i had a pertition that is the same release, and i would use this partition to migrate, and if i experienced any issues,i could use the swap command to go back to the partition with the non-migrated database.

I have not done an online upgrade for a while, and only had a limited time to play so far, but from what i have seen, you either have to schedule the reboot/software activation using the SI tool, or reconnect with the SI tool when you want to activate the new load, but in between you activating the new load all changes to the DB will be lost it seems.

What i am planning to do is upgrade the inactive partition in hours. Then as soon as i get in out of hours, perform a swap command from the ESM, and activate the partition with the same load but then use this for migration, and then upgrade to MCD 5 after the migration is deemed ok.

I am aiming for some more lab time on this, but wanted some thoughts from those with recent real world experience of doing this.

Thanks all.

 

[Supernova99]

upgrading and activating the inactive are not as simple as you think.

You need to use he SI to do this
What the SI will do is upgrade the software (MCD) and then it will data restore the database after a time you can set.
This is when you loose service whilst the system reboots and restores the database.
The Swap commnd can be used afterwards but not until
I would suggest that you set the upgrade off and set the time that is suitable for you say next morning at 6am
then the SI will backup and restore the database and sswitch to the inactive partition. this will take around 20-30 mins depending on the size of your databases.
If it goes pear shaped you can simply SWAP back to your previous version.


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[f1fanatic]

Thanks Supernova,

I thought that was going to be the case to be honest. I will have a chat with the project manager, as i dont htink they were expecting this, and was thinking i could roll up on the saturday, type in swap on all the controllers and the continue with the upgrade.

From memory and the little play time i have had, it seemed that i was going to have schedule the activation of the inactive partition, and then carry on with the migration, then use the old partition in line with the swap command if required.

Thanks again.