HPE Storage Users Group

A Storage Administrator Community




Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 6 posts ] 
Author Message
 Post subject: Patching questions
PostPosted: Fri Aug 11, 2017 9:01 am 

Joined: Tue Nov 10, 2015 11:51 am
Posts: 17
So the patching mechanism is a little bit of a mystery for me :)
I'd like to know the following:

- Is there any way to get notified about patches that get released?
- Why are patches not cumulative?
- Can they be applied in any order? (e.g. if I install P85 first, can I install P60 later, given that P60 has not been superseded by P85?)
- How do I know if I should apply a patch? (I can see StoreFront remote recommending patches, is this the only method to know that a patch should be applied?)

Thanks
Michel


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Patching questions
PostPosted: Fri Aug 11, 2017 3:46 pm 

Joined: Mon Apr 28, 2014 4:51 pm
Posts: 38
Location: Rockford, MI
I do all of my own patching and determine which patches I apply by reading the release notes. General rule of thumb is to apply the patches in patch order (for the ones that apply) but a lot of patches supersede previous patches and I don't recall any of those requiring the previous patch to be installed first. If you are upgrading via the VSP it will do all of the health checks and everything for you but I prefer to do them manually as I run several that they do not.

I have only had one issue during upgrades and that was moving to 3.2.2 MU4 on my 7450, the issue I ran into was undocumented but known by ERT. I won't go into details but if anyone is curious I can share.

Here is an example of one of my checklists from a previous upgrade.

Pre-Upgrade Checks
Hosts
• Download Updates and Release Notes
• Determine which to apply
• Upgrade VSP first (if update is required)
• Stage 3PAR updates to VSP
• Check compatibility of components. You can complete this step yourself by using SPOCK or send off a completed host worksheet to HP who will verify the compatibility for you.
• Apply Windows multipath patches :
• KB275704 needs to be applied to Windows Server 2008, and 2008 R2
• KB2821052 needs to be applied to Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2008 R2
• Check MPIO is set to round robin on Windows 2008 servers using the native MPIO driver. The process using psexec is covered in this post under point 2.

SAN
• Load must be below 50% at the time of upgrade. Run statcpu and statport and check utilisation is below 50%
• Check current version is on upgrade path. showversion
• Check the system is healthy. checkhealth

Pre-Upgrade (Day of Upgrade)
• Run statcpu and statport and check utilization is below 50%
• Suspended tasks that would cause a heavy load i.e. backups
• Stop AO, DO, and RC tasks before the upgrade. Also stop anything else that interacts with the system such as scripts
• Stop system reporter. Stop windows service – 3Par System Reporter Sampler Service on <myserver>
• Showtask – and check for any DO activity
• Check no one is logged in showuserconn
• Checkhealth again. checkhealth -svc detail. In addition run these commands and log them to a txt file.
showsys –d Basic system in
showversion –a –b
showpd –failed –degraded
Shownet
Showalert Check for any warning and critical alerts
Shownode Make sure that all are online
Showcage Verify that each cage is connected to LoopA and LoopB on different nodes in the pair.
Showbattery Verify that the charge level is above 90%
showport Verify that all FC ports have a partner and are not in a failover state.
Verify that all SAS ports have the proper label aligning to NSP
showport –d -sfp Verify that all of the SFP's are online and that the MaxSpeed(Gbps) is 8.5
Showhost Verify that all hosts are online and the number of paths are in line with how they are zoned
Showhost -pathsum Provides a more condensed overview of the number of active connections and to which nodes.
• Suspend tasks setsched -suspend_all. Verify that they are suspended by running showsched again.
• checkupgrade to verify if the system is ready to undergo an online upgrade.
• Enable maintenance mode in SPOCC for 4 hours.
To enable maintenance mode from SPOCC
1. Browse to the IP address of the SP/VSP
2. Click on the Spmaint button
3. Select 3 InServ Configuration Management
4. Select the Modify button for the specific InServ
5. Select the ON radio button under Maintenance Mode
6. Enter the duration in the pulldown menu
7. The select Update InServ Info

Post Upgrade
• showversion –a -b Check version is as expected
• showhost –pathsum Verify connectivity of hosts
• setsched -resume_all Restart suspended tasks. Check schedules running again showsched
• Restart SR on <myserver>, RC, AO, etc
• Resume backups
• If avilabe update CLI, SNMP, SSMC, Host software, etc...

_________________
Adam Berus - I.S. Tech Lead - Wolverine Worldwide Inc.
x1-7200, x2-7400, x1-7450, x1-8400, x2-8440
3PAR Technologies: AFC, AO, FilePersona, RemoteCopy (RCIP)


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Patching questions
PostPosted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 4:17 am 

Joined: Wed Feb 19, 2014 12:53 pm
Posts: 46
Hi

If you have access to HPE partner site, there is in section 3PAR OS and Patches
always actual pdf like Patches and SP code information vYYYYMMDD.pdf, where is everything you need to know. All patches, what is superseded, obsolete , patch order ....

F.


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Patching questions
PostPosted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 5:53 am 

Joined: Mon Apr 28, 2014 4:51 pm
Posts: 38
Location: Rockford, MI
I'm not a partner so have never been to the partner site so I don't know what additional information it contains but for me all of the info I have ever needed has been contained in the release notes. Just make sure you read them very carefully. If you have never been through the update process before I would highly recommend scheduling the first few with HPE support and watch then and ask questions. What I did was join the HPE Room from a VM, and recorded the session, most tend to use Putty so make sure to have it installed and configured to log to a file so you can later go back and reverse engineer it. It's been probably 3 or 4 years since HPE has done one of my upgrades so I can't speak to their current process but that is what they did then and is how I learned how to do the upgrades. For some reason HPE does not like to share information, drives me nuts. I would also recommend getting to know your local HPE support guys, if you get in good with them and show them that you are competent they may share a lot of info and tools with you.

You can also sign up for product alerts so you are emailed anytime a new patch or upgrade has been released. Just use your passport to sign in and then select the products you want notified on. http://www.hpe.com/support/e-updates

For the most part, and generally speaking, upgrades are easy but make no mistake you need have a good grasp of your environment and be wiling to put in the work it takes to read all of the release notes and be disciplined in how you prep and deploy. This needs be be approcahed for a 360 point of view, Array, Host (OS drivers, FW, Host Explorer), FC Switches, SSMC and VSP. If you are not one of those people I would suggest letting HPE or your partner handle your upgrades. Also, the upgrade checklist I provided is not static or all inclusive, portions of it change according to what updates have been released.

_________________
Adam Berus - I.S. Tech Lead - Wolverine Worldwide Inc.
x1-7200, x2-7400, x1-7450, x1-8400, x2-8440
3PAR Technologies: AFC, AO, FilePersona, RemoteCopy (RCIP)


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Patching questions
PostPosted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 11:28 pm 

Joined: Tue Nov 10, 2015 11:51 am
Posts: 17
Hi

I have done several (patch) updates as well, and I have a good handle on the environment. I was just thinking that there must be a better way than to read all the release notes and compiling all the information myself (and every other customer doing the same), when they could just have a nice matrix or something that lists all the patches and which patches they obsolete, and maybe in which "area" they fix things. Would make life easier... (but it sounds like that partner page/document would be in that direction, I do not have access there though)

Thanks for all the replies so far, please keep them coming if you have more tips!


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Patching questions
PostPosted: Wed Aug 16, 2017 6:27 am 

Joined: Mon Apr 28, 2014 4:51 pm
Posts: 38
Location: Rockford, MI
Looks like we are in the same boat then :) You are probably already using it but just keep referencing the HPE Enterprise Library, this is probably the closest thing we are going to get to information consolidation. http://h17007.www1.hpe.com/us/en/storage/info-library/index.aspx

_________________
Adam Berus - I.S. Tech Lead - Wolverine Worldwide Inc.
x1-7200, x2-7400, x1-7450, x1-8400, x2-8440
3PAR Technologies: AFC, AO, FilePersona, RemoteCopy (RCIP)


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 6 posts ] 


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 65 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group | DVGFX2 by: Matt