topic Re: Upgrade From 1GB to 10GB Controller? in Array Setup and Networking

Upgrade From 1GB to 10GB Controller?

crw64 — Tue, 07 Oct 2014 10:28:15 GMT

We have a CS260 we are upgrading to a 460g-x2 (cache and controller) that will be added to a group of 2 other 460g-x2's (actually C500's). Is it possible to upgrade from 1gb controller to 10gb controller live or am I better off adding the 260 to the group, migrate the data and then perform the upgrade? I know a live upgrade is possible when updating the controller, but no documents I have read state whether going from 1gb to 10gb is supported live, and I can see why it wouldn't be (change from 4 x 1gb data ports to 2 x 10gb ports and a change of IP addressing to match).

Re: Upgrade From 1GB to 10GB Controller?

Nick_Dyer — Tue, 07 Oct 2014 14:33:57 GMT

Hello,

This is supported as a live upgrade; the process is to remove and upgrade the standby controller first, switch the roles within the UI and then proceed with the second controller.

The only caveat here is you MUST be running either 1.4.x or 2.1.x firmware - I believe 2.0.x has a restriction on being able to do this live.

If you speak to support (or your aligned SE) documentation on how to perform the upgrade can be provided.

Re: Upgrade From 1GB to 10GB Controller?

crw64 — Tue, 07 Oct 2014 15:52:43 GMT

Thanks Nick. So that being said, my assumption is that once the first controller has been upgraded, there will be one controller (the recently upgrade standby controller) showing the 2 x 10gb interfaces for which to configure/change the data network IP's, and the active controller, which will still have the 4 x 1gbps data network ports listed? Does the process simply adopt the configuration of ports 1 and 2 and drop ports 3 and 4 from the configuration?

Thanks

Re: Upgrade From 1GB to 10GB Controller?

Nick_Dyer — Tue, 07 Oct 2014 15:58:38 GMT

That's correct - whatever subnet & network info eth3 & eth4 were assigned on the 1Gb fabric will be applied to the new 10Gb ports (referred to as tg1 and tg2 in the world of Nimble).

Hope this helps!

Re: Upgrade From 1GB to 10GB Controller?

bbeulin69 — Tue, 07 Oct 2014 16:24:25 GMT

Nice job Nick. I'd also clarify that you will have to complete an iSCSI Rescan on all hosts connecting to the Nimble Storage array as Eth5 & Eth6 IPs are no longer used by the Nimble Array. As Nick mentioned, reaching out to your aligned SE is a great thing to do as they can provide additional answers as well as KB documentation to assist you.

Good Luck (Not that you will need it)

Re: Upgrade From 1GB to 10GB Controller?

rayolander50 — Tue, 07 Oct 2014 19:22:35 GMT

We chose to upgrade to v2.1.4 first, but we did a live upgrade on a CS220X4 from 1G to 10G (admittedly the array had just been put on the network for a project so it only had test machines on it, but I never lost connectivity). In fact, we will soon be doing it live on our main production array as well (also a CS220X4).

ETH5 and ETH6 go away because you physically remove those from the controllers during the upgrade, ETH1 & ETH2 stay just as they were since they are integrated NICs, and finally ETH3/ETH4 convert to TG1/TG2 when you swap out the 1G cards for 10G cards. We did a lot of planning ahead of time to make sure it went smoothly, but the operation itself went flawlessly and we didn't even lose a single packet (results may vary - I recommend having ETH2 as a data interface during the migration so if all else fails at least one active data connection is the same before and during the migration).

That being said though, I can't stress enough to do an extremely detailed migration plan before you start anything. I can't count how many times over the years that doing a plan, even for something simple, has helped me find that one thing that could have been a potential major problem. Worst case is that you made an action plan that proved the maintenance was as easy as you thought. The best case is that you avoid a resume-generating event.

Regards,

Ray