Clariion upgrade

Hi Consty,

I have upgraded three of my CLARiiONs from one generation to the next, and on one of them we skipped a generation (Cx700 to Cx4-480). I just recently purchased a Cx4-960 upgrade for our Cx3-80 as well and will be upgrading that one soon.

I don't know about the rollback ability, but each time the upgrade was successful. I never had an issue with the process.

Oh, sorry if I gave the wrong impression, but it will be EMC (or whoever supports your arays) peforming the upgrade. It is not like upgrading the FLARE, which is a pretty simple process. The data-in-place array upgrade is a pretty in depth process and the instructions are about as thick as a book. It is quite a bit of work to perform and can take around 8 hours.

Thanks for your answer,

I guess you just follow the EMC procedure, any Hint ?

Regards

Consty

Did you personally perform the upgrade yourself? I didn't know that EMC let endusers perform data-in-place array upgrades. The procedures are only available to EMC support personnel and partners I thought as well.

Hi

no i m not end user.

i m working as emc partner in middle east.

Thanks a lot for all your answers.

Now I am checking the configuration we got, there are 2 items

the PS-BAS-CHCNV (conv for cx4 out of family chassis) and

NAV4-240 (navi manager upgrade for the CX4-240), the first one

shoud be a service and the second a software, what are they for ?

And what doe's "Physical Fulfillment method" means ?

Are they mandatory ?

Regards

Consty

First, I have not personally done any upgrades but the process to upgrade from one family to a different family (CX3 to CX4) is basically two steps (very basic).

1.physically change the hardware - new Storage Processes and cables, maybe new SPS

2. change the software running on the SP's - CX3 uses a different version of Flare and Navisphere than on the CX4 - you need to change all the operating software on the array to handle the new Storage Processors.

Before you upgrade the software, you "could" go back to the CX3, but once you've changed the software on the flare drives, you are comitted

glen

Hi Consty - yes, the Service Engagement you listed is required as a model conversion is not a customer activity due to the complexity involved.  Please let me know if you have additonal questions.

Thanks for your answer,

I know that the service involved is not a customer activity,

I am a new EMC partner and I am studying the process.

Another question is, what free disk space should the flare

have to handle the process ?

Regards

Consty

Hi Consty -- not sure of the exact answer to your question, but I would suggest referring to the CLARiiON Procedure Generator (CPG) for the answer to this question for your specific conversion path.  It is also required that you complete several conversion and CX4 training classes prior to the activity.  Those classes are also listed in the CPG for reference.

Greetings Guys..

regarding The upgrade..

1st stepp is to prepare the BOX for upgrade..

you have to run CAP and get the list of LUNS need to be migrate, before upgrade.

so it will freeup the space from Vault disks.

then simply follow the Procedure,

Only one Point i faced problem when.. SPA need to be pushed and scan DISKs,

if it happen with you.. not to worry takeout SPA and push SPB  first.

it happend with me when i was upgrading cx300 to cx3

procedure is straightforward and accurate..

regards

Syed Ahmar

Hello,

Thanks for your answers.

My concern is about the servers (Solaris/Sparc) which are connected to the

array without Powerpath, some do nothave Navisphere even. Is there any issue

when migrating the array ?

Thanks

Regards

Consty

Most likely there will be a number of reboots that are required for the upgrade - if a host does not have failover software, then when the SP reboots, the host will lose connection to its LUNs - you can shut down all the hosts prior to the upgrade and not turn on the hosts until all is done.

glen

Unless I missed something here gentlemen, we are talking about family upgrades which require hardware replacements. It is my understanding that these require an absolute shutdown of the array as the hardware is replaced. This is how it has always been done at our site.

Since the array is completely shut down, there isn't anything you can do on the host to handle that "failover". The hosts have to go down before the array upgrade and they don't come back up until the upgrade is completed.

Please forgive me if I misunderstood the reference to failover on the host and rebooting the SPs one at a time.