topic x650 x350 x450 FIrmware upgrade affects EAPS domains ? in ExtremeSwitching (EXOS/Switch Engine)

x650 x350 x450 FIrmware upgrade affects EAPS domains ?

Eduardo_Mendiza — Fri, 09 Sep 2016 22:52:00 GMT

Hi everyone,

We are doing an upgrade to one of our client's HQ with the following topology:

22-story building with 11 EAPS instances coming from the cores (couple of x650's on a stack with core license) distributed to all the other switches in the building (x450's and x350's with edge license).

Going with the recommended release of EXOS 15.3.5.2-patch1-10 (our current firmware is 12.6.5.2 and 12.3.4.12 on our cores). I've checked the release notes for that release and I dont see anything that could affect us with EAPS or ELRP, but we have our doubts.

Are main questions are:

Could there be any problem with the re-convergence of the eaps rings, once we start upgrading and rebooting our switches one by one?

Should we start the upgrade from our access switches and then advance towards our core switches or start from the core? Is there any best practice for this?

Does ELRP gets affected in any way (Dont think so, but our client is concerned about this too)?

Thanks in advance.

RE: x650 x350 x450 FIrmware upgrade affects EAPS domains ?

Stephane_Grosj1 — Sat, 10 Sep 2016 13:30:00 GMT

Hi,

it's always difficult to be 100% sure without knowing more deeply the network, traffic types and patterns, what kind of devices are connected to it (sometimes the network upgrade can be fine but the end-systems don't like it) and some other configuration details.

However, on a generic level, I'd be confident that this should go smoothly. I have already run EAPS topology with 16.1 core switches and ExtremeWare edge switches, without an issue...

To start with, there's a 15.3.5.2p1-11 that has been recently released.
Speaking of EXOS version, 12.3 is very old. From the top off my mind, this release is a "pivot", I do recall there were many changes around it, and I do recall telling some customers to do a step upgrade to 12.6 before going to the targeted release. You'll have to dig into the RN but I think some default behaviors were changed (look for STP and VRRP mainly). Be sure to have a copy of the config unaltered by the upgrade process in case you need to rollback (simply do multiple copies of the config).

I believe the most critical part of your upgrade will be on the Core, as this is an EAPSv2 topology, I assume your Core manage a shared-link. While I'm not aware of any problem doing this upgrade, I'd test it if possible.

As for ELRP, since 12.3 the feature as been nicely enhanced (and is still in recent releases btw - ELRP is a very nice protocol). That shouldn't affect its behavior, but from 12.3 you'll have access to new parameters (like the ability to block a port automatically) that you may want to implement (after the upgrade process as I'd not recommend doing 2 different things in one MW).

Stephane

RE: x650 x350 x450 FIrmware upgrade affects EAPS domains ?

Eduardo_Mendiza — Mon, 12 Sep 2016 07:52:00 GMT

Thanks for the reply Stephane,

I'll guess all my x350's and x450's will be fine if I make a direct upgrade to 15.3.2.x. So now my main concern is both my cores running 12.3.4.12.

I have read the release notes for versions 12.3.x, 12.6.x, 15.3.x and the only relevant thing I've found is the following statement:

"When updating from ExtremeXOS 12.0.x or earlier to ExtremeXOS 12.5.x or later, you must first update to
ExtremeXOS 12.3.4 and then update to ExtremeXOS 12.5.x or later."

Release notes for 12.5.4

Doesnt imply directly that we should upgrade first to 12.6.x if our target is 15.3 (or maybe I'm interpreting the above statement in a different manner). Also, most of the 12.6.x releases are unsupported.

Would you still recomend going to a 12.6.x release prior to 15.3.2.x and if so, to which release?

Thanks in advance.

RE: x650 x350 x450 FIrmware upgrade affects EAPS domains ?

Eduardo_Mendiza — Thu, 15 Sep 2016 03:55:00 GMT

We contacted the GTAC and they said we should be fine going for a direct upgrade. That solves our doubts.