Firmware Update Process and Behaviour in Multi stacked enclosures

chuckk281 — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 19:36:36 GMT

Kanwar had a firmware update question:

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Hi Team,

Just wondering what will be the process and behavior of upgrading the firmware in stacked enclosures ? According to “Virtual Connect Multi-Enclosure Stacking Reference Guide”

"VCSU will upgrade all the module at same time (page 17 of the doc.)."

However I don’t want all the modules to be updated at same time so how should I go about this ?

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Lee replied:

The Virtual Connect Support Utility (VCSU) will allow you to set serial activation and place pause timers in the Interactive mode of the tool. I suggest reading the Admin Guide for the VCSU tool. VCSU doesn’t allow granular updates for Multi-Enclosure Domains(MED), I.E. update one chassis at a time. You have to do it all at once. The only flexibility is with module activation and timings.

Mark also had some advice:

Upgrade and Activate are two distinct operations in a firmware upgrade.
“Upgrade” is defined as a transfer of the firmware image to the alternate flash bank on the VC module.

“Activate” is defined as a reset of the module to boot the new firmware image.

Upgrades (i.e transfer) are done in parallel. This cannot be modified and there is no reason to modify this.

Activates (i.e resets) are done Odd/Even by default but can be modified to “Serial”.

A serial activate would only reset one module at a timer per domain, so no two modules would ever be rebooting at the same time.

I would follow Lee’s instructions on reading the Admin Guide for the VCSU.

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Any other comments or suggestions?

Re: Firmware Update Process and Behaviour in Multi stacked enclosures

RajaShekar — Fri, 04 May 2012 17:15:50 GMT

I have a similar issues here. there are multiple enclosures stacked. The command to update VC firmware in a VCSU helps to update firmware on all the enclosures in the stack. According to Lee's reply does it mean that, since VSCU will not allow updating firmware individually will VCEM help doing this.

topic Firmware Update Process and Behaviour in Multi stacked enclosures in BladeSystem - General

Firmware Update Process and Behaviour in Multi stacked enclosures

Re: Firmware Update Process and Behaviour in Multi stacked enclosures