San Switch Replacement

[Gpapa]

Hi All,

Looking for some help (best approach)or documentation. I have four 2/16 Fibre swiches on 2 fabrics im looking to replace with two 4/64.

All Brocade Switches.

Thanks

George.

[Steven Clementi]

George:

What firmware is running on the 2/16's?

Probably the easiest thing to do would be to drop a 4/64 into each fabric (assuming you have 2 fabrics) and start migrating storage and servers over to it. Once all hardware is off the 2/16's you can remove them.

What is the current setup of the 4 switches?

Can you telnet to them and run the following commands and post...

version
switchshow
fabricshow


Steven

[Gpapa]

Hi Steven

Thank you for your reply, Been a bit scazy here today, We have 2 fabrics set up, each fabric has 3 switches attached 2of wich i wish to teplace with 1 4/64 the other is at our DR site, We are using extended fabric licenses for these.

Fabric OS

Fabric 1
Head Office switch 1 .. v3.2.0
Head Office switch 2 .. v4.4.0b
DR Office Switch .. v4.4.0b

Fabric 2
Head Office switch 1 .. v3.2.0
Head Office switch 2 .. v3.2.0
DR Office Switch .. v4.4.0b

[Steven Clementi]

Ok, so the new 4/64 will probably have firmware 5.x on them... if you just bought them recently.

First thing to do is to check the release notes for the version of firmware that is on the 4/64's. If the other 3.x switches are running at least the minimum compatible firmware, then this should be easy.

Since you already have 3 switches in 1 fabric, i will assume you have at least the license that allows you to have up to 4 switches in a fabric, so we are "good" for adding a 4th switch into the mix.

Since these are new switches ("not configured"), adding them to the fabric will be easy. All you should need to do is turn them on, check/change the Domain ID's and make sure they are unique in the fabric, and connect 1 port to the existing fabric. Since there is no zoning config, the merge shold be flawless.

Once the switch is in the fabric, you can start migrating stuff to it. I would try to migrate 1 switch at a time and remove that switch once it is finished and has no devices on it.

Now... if you switches need some firmware updates to be combatible, then that will need to take place first.

What version is on the new 4/64's?


Steven

[Gpapa]

Thanks Again Steven

New switches are on 5.3. I see that version 6.1 os out also

[Steven Clementi · Accepted solution]

Ok... 5.3

Yep, 6.1 is available, though I would not upgrade just yet.

Link 1: Firmware for the 4/64 " http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareIndex.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodNameId=3185361&prodTypeId=12169&prodSeriesId=3185358&swLang=8&taskId=135&swEnvOID=54 "

Link 2: Release notes for 6.1.0d " http://bizsupport.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01545572/c01545572.pdf "

Based on the release notes, you might not want to upgrade the new switches yet. Lets take a look at the 5.3 release notes...

Link 3: Release Notes for 5.3.0b " http://bizsupport.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01196279/c01196279.pdf "

Now, according to this version, you need to be at a minimum of..

v3.2.1 for the older 2/16 switches
v5.1.0d for the newer 2/16 switches

So, if you were to simply add these new switches to your existing fabrics, my recommendation is this...

Option 1:

1. Upgrade your older switches before adding the new switches to the minimum supported firmware(since you will be getting rid of them anyway). Don't upgrade the new switches just yet. Save it until after you have removed all of the old switches.

2. Add the new switches

3. Migrate your devices and remove the old switches.

4. Upgrade the firmwares to latest suported versions. (one fabric at a time)

Option 2:

1. Upgrade ALL switches to latest supported levels.

2. Add new switchers to fabrics

3. Migrate devices and remove switches... Done!

The short story is... upgrading all of those firmwares shouldn't take too much time. Generally speaking, 10-20 minutes per switch. I'd probably just upgrade them all to begin with so I only inturrupt connectivity once or twice, rather then 3 or 4 times.

Minimum supported firmwares for a switch with 6.1.0d:

3.2.1b and 5.1.1b

Recommended firmware for your switches:

the 2/16: 3.2.1c
the 2/16V or 2/16N: 5.3.1a

Last note:

You can't jump straight from 4.4.x to 5.3.x, you need to do several updates...

4.4.x --> 5.0.x --> 5.2.x --> 5.3.x

You SHOULD be able to go from 5.3.x -- 6.1.x

Need more options? You can also "rebuild" your fabrics from the ground up.

What kind of Storage Arrays do you have? Assuming EVA's, are you using Continuous Access across the 2 sites?

Do you have storage at both sites? If so...

Do you have servers that access storage across sites? IE.. Server 1 in Site 1 has storage on Storage 2 at Site 2.


Steven

[Gpapa]

Think i'll go with option 2, sounds like it would be the smoothest approach.

we currently have an EVA3000 at each location, but these will be replaced with a EVA4400 at each location.

We do use Continuous Access across the 2 sites however we do not Present LUNs across the link, only used for replication really.

[Steven Clementi]

In that case, you probably want to pause replication while you are doing firmware upgrades since for most of those switches... (at least the older 2/16's).. they will reboot and cause a connectivity drop.

The 2/16V's should continue to run without a blink... but it is good to be prepared.


Steven

[Uwe Zessin]

For CA, you need to make some settings on the new 4 GBit switches otherwise some bad things can happen:
> switchdisable
> iodset
> dlsreset
> aptpolicy 1
> switchenable

I think the first (IOD) is set by default, but it does not hurt to check twice.