General FOS Upgrade Process Recommendations

Text: Brocade CIS SAN Telegram channel

General FOS Upgrade Process Recommendations

• If you’re on a yearly upgrade/maintenance schedule, upgrade your SANnav version before upgrading your switch/Director FOS versions

• When using SANnav to perform firmware updates, upload all required FOS PSD images into the SANnav firmware repository

• Ideally, you want to do this well ahead of your planned maintenance date

• When using a USB stick to upgrade FOS, please note the following:

• If you attempt to enable the USB stick with the command usbstorage ––enable and the enable fails, ensure you have a valid directory structure created the USB – see the https://docs.broadcom.com/docs/FOS-91x-UPG-UG for full detail

• All types of USB flash drives are supported on Gen 6 and Gen 7 platforms – the upgrade guide lists those certified by Brocade

• FOS zip or tarball files have to be in an unzipped/untarred on the USB stick prior to attempting the FOS upgrade

• Validating product support and EOS products

• Before upgrading FOS on any FC SAN product, ensure that product has a valid support contract

• Three years ago, beginning with FOS 7.4.2e, all diagnostic-related commands such as supportsave, as well as the firmwaredownload command, were automatically disabled for any products being used beyond their EOS (End of Support) dates

• Please make it a priority to deprecate all EOS products  

• Note: Post EOS date, the basic functionality of the switch will not be impacted – the switch will continue to function. The message you will receive when attempting various maintenance commands will be similar to This product has passed its End of Support date and functionality has been restricted. Please contact your Service Provider for further assistance

• Please refer to End of Support (EOS) Dates for Brocade and Cisco Products for a comprehensive listing of EOL (End of Life) and EOS (End of Support) product dates

• General rules and advice for FOS upgrades

• Typically FOS upgrades are performed once per year. Before upgrading to a new FOS version, please consider reading the Release Notes for that particular FOS version

• At a minimum, we strongly recommend you read the Important Notes section of that particular FOS release

• Newer FOS versions have newer SNMP capabilities. As such, when downloading FOS, consider downloading and implementing that FOS version’s associated SNMP MIB file to be installed and used by your SNMP applications

• With air-gapped A and B Fabrics, don’t work on both fabrics at the same time

• Typically, you want to bring Fabric A up one FOS level or two, ensure stability, and then do the same for Fabric B

• Upgrade your core Directors first, then upgrade the attached edge switch/Directors 

• In general, don’t start a FOS upgrade on a switch/Director immediately after the last one just completed - allow a reasonable buffer of time between FOS upgrades

• While this is not a strict Brocade guideline, we consider it a best practice a solid idea to wait 10 to 15 minutes between FOS upgrades on the same product. 

• It is not a good idea to upgrade firmware on two switches at the same time if those two switches are ISL'd or ICL’d together – please do not do this

• Note: For FCIP, best practice is to have the switches at each end of the FCIP tunnel operating at the same level of FOS, down to the maintenance release 

• For 7800s and 7810s, FOS upgrades should be done on both ends of the FCIP tunnel concurrently or in quick succession

• These are disruptive FW upgrades to the FCIP Tunnel, standard FC Port traffic is not impacted

• 7840s and SX6 Director Blades with Extension HCL (Hot Code Load) configured correctly, support online serial upgrades. The recommended best practice is to perform firmware upgrades on the local site switches, followed by upgrades on the remote site switches

• As of FOS v8.1.0, there is full support for non-disruptive FW upgrades for both regular and IPEX traffic on the Brocade 7840 and SX6 Blades

• Note: For IP extension traffic, both UDP and non-terminate TCP traffic may be disrupted during HCL

• Safety precautions to take prior to upgrading any FOS version:

• Take supportsaves of switches 

• Backup your switch/Director configuration - SANnav does this for you automatically

• Review the switch’s Fabric Vision MAPs violations via SANnav or the mapsdb –show CLI command to ensure the product is in a known good state

• Important: For Director-class products, ensure the two CPs are in sync (with the hasync CLI command) 

• Non-disruptive FOS upgrade requirements

• As per usual, FOS can be upgraded one major FOS version at a time in a hitless manner. There are a couple of notable exceptions:

• With FX8-24 FCIP extension blades, as well as the Brocade 7800 and 7810 extension switches, FCIP tunnels will go down during FOS upgrades

• Note: In the unlikely event you wish perform a two-level FOS migration (e.g. FOS v8.0x to v8.2.3c1), this is supported, however, the upgrade will be disruptive to all traffic and will require the use of the ‘-s’ parameter in the firmwaredownload command