PCM Plus 2.3.x - Switch Software Update

[Robert A. Palmer]

Hello, I am learning how to use PCM Plus to manage about 200 HP Procurve switches and am currently trying to update flash memory on multiple devices using PCM Plus. I have been reading the offline help built into PCM, along with doing some trial and error. I am having two issues:

1) On switches such as the 2650 with two flash memories, I used the Software Update Wizard to schedule the update of Primary Flash at a set time at night. I then went back through the Software Update wizard and scheduled the update of Secondary Flash to occur an hour later. The next day I found that only the Primary Flash had updated. At first I thought the problem was caused by some sort of version differential limit between Primary & Secondary Flash because the Primary & Secondary flash versions were quite a bit different, but after repeating my steps on other 2650s during the day I see in the Software Update Status window that the first schedule was overwritten by the second schedule for the same device. Is this normal? Is there any way to schedule consecutive Software Updates? Also, this is not a case of needing an intermediate flash update; I have already checked documentation and ruled that out.

2) When scheduling Software Updates, I select the top-most switches in a stack to update first, followed by subordanent switches at hourly intervals. When doing this during the day, I see that PCM only updates one switch at a time, even though several other switches are scheduled to update at the same time. Is there any way to have PCM concurrently update multiple switches in parallel rather than sequential order?

Thanks much for any help, also any documentation links where I can read in more detail about PCM features and limitations.

[Gerhard Roets]

Hi Robert

The manuals can be found at
http://www.hp.com/rnd/support/manuals/ProCurve-Manager.htm

You might want to note that under the FAQ's
http://www.hp.com/rnd/support/faqs/ProCurve-Manager.htm

So you can simply upgrade all the secondary firmwares and be sure to uncheck the reboot option since.

Alternatively you can deploy a CLI-Group policy which does
copy flash flash sec ( If all your primaries have been updated)

Hope this helps you in your quest :)

[Javed Padinhakara]

Robert:

Regarding your Q2, please check the ProCurve Knowledgebase article
https://my.procurve.com/knowledgebase/knowledgemanagement.aspx?wp=showarticle&id=223
[ requires a ProCurve ID ]

Summarily as of PCM 2.3, the Software Update happens in serial order and no parellelism can be achieved when being applied for multiple devices.

ps : You can search the above Knowledge base for getting clarifications around those areas.

Hope That Helps
Javed