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Storage Foundation HA upgrade from 4.1 to 5.1- doubts about encapsulation and phased upgrade

mkawagoe
Not applicable
Partner
Hi all,

I read some documentation about Storage Foundation for HA (VCS and VXFS) upgrades when root disk is mirrored and encapsulated on Solaris 10, but I still have some doubts, since there are a lot of ways of doing the upgrade and some steps are not clear. I don´t need to upgrade the OS.

What would be the best practice when I need to upgrade both: VCS and VXFS, using the installer scripts to have less manual steps as possible?

1-) Do I really  need to unencapsulate boot disk (using vxunroot, changing /etc/vfstab to c#t#d# format and going to single mode), or just dissassociating the mirror  or plex will be enough?
2-) Do I need to uninstall the old storage foundation before install the new version?
3-) According to the phased upgrade steps from 5.1 install guide, we need to execute installsf script for starting upgrade. But will it upgrade everything (VXFS and VCS) at the same time?
Or do I need to execute the same procedure twice? one to upgrade vxfs using installsf, and at the second time, I need to run installvcs, to upgrade VCS?

About MP, I have one doubt. I know I have to apply 4.1MP2, before upgrading to 5.1. Can I apply that MP in a live environment? What is the recommendation? Unencapsulating everything and going to single mode, or just stopping cluster using hastop -all?

Thanks for your help,

Marcia
1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

Gaurav_S
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP    Certified
To answer your queries:

1-) Do I really  need to unencapsulate boot disk (using vxunroot, changing /etc/vfstab to c#t#d# format and going to single mode), or just dissassociating the mirror  or plex will be enough?

-- Unencapsulation needs to be done, upgrade_start script will do that, this would be safe to do & if you disassociate mirror, you will have one safe copy for backout...

2-) Do I need to uninstall the old storage foundation before install the new version?

-- NO, upgrade will work directly from 4.1MP2 - 5.1

3-) According to the phased upgrade steps from 5.1 install guide, we need to execute installsf script for starting upgrade. But will it upgrade everything (VXFS and VCS) at the same time?
Or do I need to execute the same procedure twice? one to upgrade vxfs using installsf, and at the second time, I need to run installvcs, to upgrade VCS?

-- installsf will upgrade VCS & VXFS & VXVM (if you have), no need to run them separately
 

About MP, I have one doubt. I know I have to apply 4.1MP2, before upgrading to 5.1. Can I apply that MP in a live environment? What is the recommendation? Unencapsulating everything and going to single mode, or just stopping cluster using hastop -all?

-- Applying MP needs a reboot, it can be done in a live environment but it needs a reboot once finished since new upgraded modules needs to be loaded

-- To be safer side, it would be good to unencap & dissassociate the mirror as you will have a good copy to roll back in case of issues & yes, if this is a cluster setup, first thing would be to do "hastop -all" so that all applications are stopped so that you can proceed with unencap & diss of plexes.

Hope this helps

Gaurav


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3 REPLIES 3

jayess
Level 3
 Hi Marcia, 

What i know for sure is, when you apply 4.1MP2 is going to prompt your for reboot. So, this takes out the option of doing it on a live system.

My preferred way of upgrading cluster would be to split and work on half the cluster.

1) unencapsulation is required only if you are doing OS upgrades. So, this may not be required when you upgrade to 5.1.
2) you don't need to uninstall old SF version if you upgrade from 4.1MP2. 
3) Yes, installsf will upgrade both vxvm and vcs if you use option 2.

Hope this helps you to plan.

good luck



Marianne
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified
There should be a Read This First document with 4.1 MP2.
It will list steps to be taken such as stopping of VCS, unloading of GAB and LLT and unmounting of all vxfs file system.
If I remember correctly, there should be an 'installmp' script that you can run.

As far as upgrade to 5.1 is concerned: I will be upgrading my lab systems shortly. Like you, I believe preparation is key and haven't had time to read all the documentation. I will come back and share experience.
P.180 of the Installation Guide has the topic Planning the upgrade on contain advice such as:
Schedule sufficient outage time for the upgrade, and downtime for any applications using the VxFS file systems or VxVM volumes.
To reliably save information on a mirrored disk, shut down the system and physically remove the mirrored disk. (This may not be practical, but if done, offers a failback point.)
Bottom of p.200:
This section describes upgrading to the current Veritas Storage Foundation if you have an encapsulated root disk, need to upgrade the Solaris version, or both.
This says to me that the root disk needs to be unencapsulated. (upgrade_start will do this).

p.202 says that the common installer,  the installer command can be used. Select the option that corresponds with your current installation - all relevant options and packages will be upgraded.

Good luck!!

Gaurav_S
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP    Certified
To answer your queries:

1-) Do I really  need to unencapsulate boot disk (using vxunroot, changing /etc/vfstab to c#t#d# format and going to single mode), or just dissassociating the mirror  or plex will be enough?

-- Unencapsulation needs to be done, upgrade_start script will do that, this would be safe to do & if you disassociate mirror, you will have one safe copy for backout...

2-) Do I need to uninstall the old storage foundation before install the new version?

-- NO, upgrade will work directly from 4.1MP2 - 5.1

3-) According to the phased upgrade steps from 5.1 install guide, we need to execute installsf script for starting upgrade. But will it upgrade everything (VXFS and VCS) at the same time?
Or do I need to execute the same procedure twice? one to upgrade vxfs using installsf, and at the second time, I need to run installvcs, to upgrade VCS?

-- installsf will upgrade VCS & VXFS & VXVM (if you have), no need to run them separately
 

About MP, I have one doubt. I know I have to apply 4.1MP2, before upgrading to 5.1. Can I apply that MP in a live environment? What is the recommendation? Unencapsulating everything and going to single mode, or just stopping cluster using hastop -all?

-- Applying MP needs a reboot, it can be done in a live environment but it needs a reboot once finished since new upgraded modules needs to be loaded

-- To be safer side, it would be good to unencap & dissassociate the mirror as you will have a good copy to roll back in case of issues & yes, if this is a cluster setup, first thing would be to do "hastop -all" so that all applications are stopped so that you can proceed with unencap & diss of plexes.

Hope this helps

Gaurav