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 Post subject: Should we upgrade from 3.2.1 to 3.2.2?
PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2018 3:52 pm 

Joined: Tue Aug 15, 2017 6:23 pm
Posts: 2
We have a pair of 7200 3pars that are running 3.2.1 MU3 with Patch 23, doing RC over FC between them. HPE support has been relentlessly hounding us about upgrading them to 3.2.2 EMU4 and now 3.2.2 MU6, with several mentions of this being a "critical update".

So, I started down the road of doing the host worksheet details so they could compare against their support/tested matrix and have gotten back the host worksheets now. We are on firmware 7.3.1a on all of our Brocade fabric switches, and this comes back as an "untested" version and they recommend updating all of the FC switches to at least 7.3.1b or higher.

So, like everyone else, I'm a sysadmin who is stretched thin and strapped for time, and I generally avoid doing firmware updates on critical production systems unless there is a specific feature i need or bug I need fixed. 3.2.1 MU3 has been rock solid for us and we are currently not needing any new features that 3.2.2 might have, and I cannot find any glaring items in the release notes for 3.2.2 that make it obvious that we should update. Is it worth my time and effort to dive into updating the firmware on all of our FC switches and THEN beginning the (somewhat arduous) process of working with HPE to upgrade to 3.2.2 on our arrays, or are we safe to stay with 3.2.1 and tell them to stop e-mailing us about it?

Can anybody speak to anything I'm missing about 3.2.2 that makes it a "critical" update, as mentioned by HPE in their e-mails? Is there a major bug that will bite us if we don't update or something?

In Q1 of 2019 we are going to be purchasing new 8000 series arrays, all flash, and will start migrating workloads off our current 7200's.... is there any reason why 3.2.1 would not be sufficient on the 7200's to allow for seamless migration, assuming the 8000's come with 3.3.x?

Thanks to everyone here in advance, from a long time lurker. :D


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 Post subject: Re: Should we upgrade from 3.2.1 to 3.2.2?
PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2018 9:38 pm 

Joined: Mon Jul 29, 2013 9:01 pm
Posts: 62
ok having done our last 3.2.1 FW to 3.2.2 (mu6) I can say Yes do it.

When it comes to brocade fabric unless you are doing something other than just shifting blocks of data from A to b don't be too concerned. I have not updated all our fabrics but the ones the 3pars are plugged into are on the same fabric version for consistency.

The upgrade team basically said this means they just have not tested this version of 3par FW with this Version of brocade. Its the connection from hosts like windows and VMware you need to make sure are ok.

There are a tonne of bugs these updates fix and you only need to read the alerts from HP about them and the number of times "random node restart" is mentioned...especially with replication.

MU6 fixes also a FW issue in the Emulex fibre cards your 7200 with have .We experienced fibre sfp restarts on node 1 at least 1 time a month...but HP would not swap the Node unless it happened 3 times in a calendar month. This fw is applied in MU6 and affects all 3pars that have Emulex controllers.

You should do this also for the fact if a disk dies and needs replacement the disk will not work as the FW for the Disk is not in the FW cat of the 3par which gets updated with these updates and patches.

Cheers
Steve


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 Post subject: Re: Should we upgrade from 3.2.1 to 3.2.2?
PostPosted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 2:03 am 

Joined: Mon Sep 21, 2015 2:11 pm
Posts: 1570
Location: Europe
I agree with Steve..... to some extent :)

Upgrade the 3PAR without a doubt. 3.2.1 from MU3 and up was and is close to rock solid but so is 3.2.2 from MU4.. From what I've heard it's even better.

The main reason I can give for upgrading is the fact that 3.2.1 MU3 is no longer supported by 3PAR engineering. Known bugs will not be fixed in patches, new replacement drives will not get patches to be supported etc. You will get pretty far with replacement drives on the 7k by just patching your current 3.2.1 MU3 version, but if you're going down that road, why not do it right?

Brocade SAN-switches are generally rock solid as you as you're just doing plain old FC without FICON, FCIP and stuff like that. The only problem you might have (or get) is the odd java certificate being expired ( https://support.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/public ... cale=en_US ) and stuff like that. Basically FOS has the same thing as 3PAR OS... When the versions get to a certain age (or has enough known bugs that they are tired of root causing) they will stop the support for that version so you need to upgrade to keep getting support and root cause analysis. When Brocade stops that support, so does HPE. And when the FOS is no longer active, it becomes unsupported/untested for every configuration. So even if your 7.3.1a might have been supported when you upgraded or installed the system, it isn't today. If you are planning on adding new SAN-switches to that/those fabric(s) with a new 8k system next year, the old ones should be at the same level as the new switches (or the highest available version... 8Gb stops at FOS 7.4).

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The views and opinions expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my current or previous employers.


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 Post subject: Re: Should we upgrade from 3.2.1 to 3.2.2?
PostPosted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 11:03 am 

Joined: Tue Aug 15, 2017 6:23 pm
Posts: 2
Thank you guys for the insightful replies. I'm going to schedule and proceed with the updates for both the FC switches and the 3pars so we are in a good spot for our new 8000 series next year and are set for a long rest-of-life for our 7200's while they are still under support.


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