β03-31-2014 10:00 PM
A phased upgrade upgrades a portion of the nodes in the cluster at a time. The advantage of this method is that it requires lesser server downtime than a full upgrade.
Depending on the size of the cluster, you can split it into two or more subclusters and upgrade each subcluster separately. Performing a phased upgrade is similar to doing a full upgrade multiple times, so a phased upgrade supports all upgrade paths that are supported by a full upgrade.
Symantec provides both a script-based and a web-based installer to perform a phased upgrade of Storage Foundation and High Availability (SFHA). Before you start the upgrade, confirm that you have licenses for all the nodes that you plan to upgrade.
There is some downtime involved during this upgrade. However, you can review the procedures and carefully plan out the movement of the service groups from node-to-node to minimize the downtime for any particular service group. Downtime exists from the time you prepare the second subcluster until you finish activating the first subcluster. You can do the following to minimize the downtime:
Performing a phased upgrade involves the following steps:
You can perform a phased upgrade from SFHA 5.1 or other supported previous versions to SFHA 6.1.
During a phased upgrade, note that:
Symantec Storage Foundation and High Availability documentation for other releases and platforms can be found on the SORT website.