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Doran_Lum_13484's avatar
Doran_Lum_13484
Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
Oct 02, 2013

Upgrading of BIG-IP 3900 systems

Hi all, we would like to upgrade the software of both our new BIG-IP 3900 Series for the 1st time. We have a concern if the service would be working after the update.

 

Are we able to update the software on one of the Primary F5 system and monitor it for one week then if there's any issue before upgrading the other Secondary F5 system ?

 

askf5
deployment
f5

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  • Kevin_Stewart's avatar
    Kevin_Stewart
    Icon for Employee rankEmployee
    Oct 02, 2013

    Generally speaking, you wouldn't be able to create an HA pair with mismatched versions. Depending on which version you're coming from, I think it'd be best to first offline the secondary unit, break the HA pair, and then boot the new OS into a separate volume. If it proves unstable, either offline it and bring the secondary back up, or boot back into the old volume.

     

  • JRahm's avatar
    JRahm
    Icon for Admin rankAdmin
    Oct 02, 2013

    Operationally, I am a fan of this process:

     

    1. Sync both systems, create archives, and ftp them offbox somewhere, then freeze all configuration changes for the duration of the upgrade window
    2. Take snapshots of current system and application performance and availability
    3. Upgrade the standby unit and fail over to it
    4. Take new snapshots of current system and application performance and availability and compare to the ones taken before the upgrade, failing back if there are issues that can't immediately be addressed. If all is well, then proceed.
    5. Upgrade the now standby unit and fail back over to it
    6. Take another set of snapshots and compare to previous to make sure both units in the pair took the upgrade well.
    7. Watch for anomalies over the course of several days, then unfreeze the configuration changes.

    The benefit of a config freeze during the upgrade process is it is super simple to fall back, just boot back into the previous version bootslot on the standby and then fail over.