upgrading from 7.00 to 7.20

[Stephan.H]

Hi,
I have some question about upgrading insight agents.
I have many Servers deployed with severals versions : 5.4 , 6.40 , 7.00, 7.10

i'd like to upgrade all my servers with the 7.20 version.
My objective is to make them communicate with my Manager 7.20.

I have 2 questions :
- upgrading an agent while the server is in use (in my case , it is a very sensible Socket server) is dangerous ?
- What happend when the drivers are upgraded ? (especially Nic and graphics drivers)
- Is a reboot is 'recommanded' or 'necessary' ?
- what are the risks to upgrade an agent and wait 3 weeks for reboot ?

Finally , i wonder if there is an 'ideal' procedure to upgrade an agent without danger

thanks for your help

[Rob Buxton · Accepted solution]

Recommended practise is to update the entire Proliant Support Pack (PSP) not just the Agents.
These are tessted bundles, updating just the agents, especially if the underlying drivers are quite old can have unpredictable results.

Also, 7.40 is the latest version out.

Reboots are always necessary if the entire PSP is updated.
I've noticed that updating the VCA typically needs a reboot if you go ahead with just updating the agents.

There are no guaranteed "without danger" software updates. If only there were!

[Stephan.H]

As you said, I experienced some unpredictables results from update entire PSP on my servers win2k and win2k3
- Difficulties to restart or stop VCA service
- Server unable to load the new network card driver (it happened one time).
- after update, i'm able to view the web page https://server:2381 with all services disabled.(still happening after a reboot with the HP services disable)

---------

I keep in memory that updating by script with setupc.exe a lot of servers is the best solution when there is more than 100 servers to update
However, the ideal solution is to update one by one.

When i find problems like these, is the complete desinstall and reinstall the solution to correct the problems ?

[Daniel Leblanc]

I agree with Rob,

I manange over 2000 server and the easier way is to put 7.40 up to date, there many thing more thing updated then package 7.40(individual item in the package), like the Insight Agent 7.41,bla bla...there should soon ther version 7.50 out i have been told.

[Stephan.H]

Thanks for your help.

some things are more clear now :)