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SYMAJ's avatar
SYMAJ
Level 6
10 years ago

Upgrading Multiple 5220 Appliances

I have the following upgrade scenario with NBU and 5220 appliances, and am wondering how much of this I can perform concurrently.

 

Windows 2008R2 Master Server - recently upgraded to NBU 7611 - all OK

5220 Media Server 1 (72TB) - 2.5.3

5220 Media Server 2 (36TB) - 2.5.3

 

I am moving the appliances to 2611 and am wondering do I have to stop all activity on Master and both appliances and upgrade them consecutively or can I stop all activity and upgrade the two appliances at the same time ?  They are both Media ONLY, and the Master is already at 7611 so there should be no version issues.

Thanks,

AJ.

 

 

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  • chashock's avatar
    chashock
    10 years ago

    You certainly can do them at the same time, but since you're coming from 2.5.3, you know you'll have a fairly long window of time for the upgrade to complete due to the MSDP conversion.  Unless you're comfortable that at least one of them will finish before you need to take backups again, I probably wouldn't do them both concurrently.  Since your master is at 7.6.1.1, there's nothing NBU-wise stopping you.

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  • SYMAJ's avatar
    SYMAJ
    Level 6
    10 years ago

    Dan,

    Thanks for the input.

    I had already disabled all policies and SLP secondary operations - nice little utility though.....

    The sizes I quoted for MSDP were the appliance capacities, not my MSDP pool sizes.  I have a 64TB pool on the 72TB appliances (used to be the MSDP limit) and a 36TB pool on the 36TB appliances (head storage not being used on any of the appliances for MSDP pool).  I had already run the pddeconvert utility which proved to be 'fairly' accurate for the MSDP conversion timing.

    One point of interest for those of you who have not performed this upgrade yet - each of my upgrades has failed in the last section of the MSDP conversion.  There is a partition created by the upgrade utility for MSDP Catalog, and the size of this is calculated by the upgrade utility.  In my case it is too small and the final stage of conversion fails with an out of space condition.  I then have the expand the newly created partition (from the web-interface of the appliance - using the slider bar NOT the value box) and re-start the conversion process - which thankfully picks up where it left off and only took a few seconds to complete the entire process and didn't have to re-process the 5hrs plus of conversion.  Once this completed the upgrade is fully complete and appliance is up and running - available for work.

    AJ

    • Zamantatari's avatar
      Zamantatari
      Level 2
      8 years ago

      HI DAN,

      I need your help. I read your answer and the same case heppens to me today during the last phase MSDP catalog partition gets full.

      I want to know after increasing the space of MSDP Catalog partition from webconsole/ CLISH, How can I restart the conversion process to resume where its left. 

      Did you run this /usr/openv/pdde/pdconfigure/scripts/installers/PDDE_convert.sh from maintainance shell of the appliance ?

      Please need your urgent responce.

      Regards,

      Zaman

  • Dangerous_Dan's avatar
    Dangerous_Dan
    Level 5
    10 years ago

    I'd like to give my knowledge also

    Keep Windows Master server services running, they are needed for Appliance upgrades for backup/restore test performed in first 5 minutes.

    It is important that you disable all Active Policies and SLP's on the local master server PLUS any Remote Netbackup environment SLPs which use this Netbackup domain as a target - these can and will cause you major corruption if they run during an upgrade. Plus it will allow you to perform tests afterwards without worrying about PEM running and scheduled backups.

    You can use the attached program I use if you like to disable all current active policies and SLP's with -deactivate. It will make note of the active polices and deactivate them and after you have upgraded your media Appliances, you can run it again with -activate to reactive the original policies/SLP's.

     

    As for MSDP conversion you can use the following app (provided by Symantec) to give you a good ETA before your upgrade you can only run it once and any attempt after first ETA will be false. The ETA does not include the binary upgrade - which normally takes 1 - 2 hours:

    http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=tech213728

     

    Also forgot to note that your disk sizes mentioned above show that you are also using the local head space for Deduplication. Once you upgrade to 2.6.1, you should see major size savings in your MSDP pool, and therefore I recommend you resize you MSDP pool to just use the disk shelves. It is well known that the disks on the head are far slower that that in the disk shelves and will drop the performance to the slowest disk (head disks). Moving off this disk will great improve performance of your MSDP pool. :-)

    Cheers

    Dan

  • Andrew_Madsen's avatar
    Andrew_Madsen
    Level 6
    10 years ago

    The upgrade will fail on the second 5220 at your DR site if the first (master / media) is still upgrading. Even though the master server binaries are replaced the master server is still off line (or at least should be) until the MSDP is upgrade is finished. 

  • chashock's avatar
    chashock
    Level 6
    10 years ago

    You certainly can do them at the same time, but since you're coming from 2.5.3, you know you'll have a fairly long window of time for the upgrade to complete due to the MSDP conversion.  Unless you're comfortable that at least one of them will finish before you need to take backups again, I probably wouldn't do them both concurrently.  Since your master is at 7.6.1.1, there's nothing NBU-wise stopping you.

  • SYMAJ's avatar
    SYMAJ
    Level 6
    10 years ago

    I know the 7611 Master will support the 253 code on the appliances but want to get all appliances up to the 2611 level to provide support for specific backup agents (EV11 etc.).

    I was just wondering whether the two Media appliances upgrading at the same time, attached to the same master, would give problems.  Don't see why it should........

    Also, a further question during this upgrade scenario:

    On my DR site I have another 2 5220's, one Master/Media and one Media only.  I have upgraded the Master/Media to 2611 and it is currently converting it's MSDP pool (estimated 5 1/2 hrs).  As the NBU upgrade is now complete on the Master/Media and it is just upgrading its MSDP pool can I start the upgrade of the Media only 5220 (which is attached to the Master appliance which is still completing its MSDP upgrade) ?  Again - don't see why not but unsure as I have not tried this before......

    Thanks,

    AJ.

  • Andrew_Madsen's avatar
    Andrew_Madsen
    Level 6
    10 years ago

    Your call. The 7.6.1.1 master can manage the 2.5.3 appliances as is. I would recommend the one-at-a-time scenario because of the image changes that happen between 7.5 (2.5) and 7.6 (2.6) code. That can take a long time to process. We had one 36TB unit take close to 8 hours to finish.