Upgrading from HP-UX 11i v1 to v2 on PA-RISC

[Greg Vaidman]

Anyone have experience with this upgrade on L-Class (rp5400) and N-Class (rp7400) systems?

The specific issue is that these systems typically have many Fast Wide or Ultra Wide SCSI controllers on them all using class "c720" as reported in ioscan, including the core I/O cards, and this class is not listed as being supported on 11i v2 (May '05 Release Notes: http://docs.hp.com/en/5991-1101/ch04s07.html). That page shows the only SCSI controllers supported are those using Ultra2 or Ultra160 SCSI and the "c8xx" class/driver.

So the question is, if we want to upgrade these servers to 11i v2, will we have to replace all the older SCSI controllers (and disks?), including the Core I/O cards, or will the c8xx driver somehow work with these devices?

[Geoff Wild]

We did this about 6 months ago - but did a fresh install - not upgrade.

No SCSI - only fibre attached drives.

Read the "read before installing or updating" guide...

The A5158A Fibre Channel is not supported...

Make sure your firmware is up to date.

Rgds...Geoff

[Dave Olker]

Hi Greg,

I have a pair of L-Class boxes that had a bunch of old SCSI and FC cards in them and those cards had to be removed/replaced before I was able to update the box to 11i v2.

Don't know if it's mandatory but it was how we did it.

Dave

[Greg Vaidman]

Dave, Thanks.

Did you do the replacements just to be safe, or was there some reference somewhere that made you do it?

Did you replace your Core I/O cards as well?

[Dave Olker]

Hi Greg,

We pulled out the SCSI/FC cards for two reasons:

1) We couldn't find any mention of the cards being supported in the Release Notes (latest version is here: http://docs.hp.com/en/5991-1101/5991-1101.pdf starting on page 77)

2) From past experience we've found that doing updates to a new OS where drivers don't exist for the cards can sometimes lead to problems (i.e. stops responding , never completing, etc.)


As for the release notes, be sure to reference the release notes for your specific version of the 11i v2 media. In other words, the latest release notes available at the link above is specific to the May 2005 version of 11i v2, so it may contain drivers for interface cards that previous versions of 11i v2 didn't include.

We did not remove/replace the Core I/O cards, just the add-on SCSI, FC and some old networking cards. We were no longer using SCSI so those cards were simply removed, but we added in a newer FC card and a new GigE card.

Hope this helps,

Dave

[Greg Vaidman]

Dave, thanks again - the reason for my concern is that I've already looked at the release notes (see my initial question), and did not find any devices using the c720 driver listed. We'll probably want to use the SCSI connections on our core cards, so it looks like we'll need to replace the core cards.

Anyone else have any experience with this?

[Andrew Rutter]

hi greg,

As far as Im aware there isnt another core I/O card, you can get for the L and N class servers that has newer scsi technology.
I would imagine the drivers will be there for use, but not officially supported for add on cards.

Andy

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom Greg,

Core I/O must be supported, otherwise the server would not be certified for 11i v2.

Based on past history, I strongly advise against upgrade-ux or its successors. It has a track record of creating unbootable/unworkable systems.

If you are going to try it, I would suggest in the lab first. Or at an HP performance center using an Ignite image of your system.

Regards,

SEP

[Greg Vaidman]

thanks all