Rolling Upgrade

In a rolling upgrade, you upgrade software to an update release on one node at a time. Services continue on the other nodes except for the time it takes to switch services from a node to be upgraded to a node that will remain in service.

Observe the following additional restrictions and requirements for the rolling upgrade method:

• Minimum Sun Cluster version - The cluster must be running a Sun Cluster 3.2 release.

• ZFS root file system – If you also upgrade the Solaris OS, do not use this upgrade method if the cluster uses ZFS for the root file system. Instead, you must use the live-upgrade method to upgrade the cluster.

• Required patch - The following are the minimum required Sun Cluster software patch levels to use the rolling upgrade method:

  • Solaris 9 OS - 125510–02

  • Solaris 10 OS on SPARC - 125511–02

  • Solaris 10 OS on x86 - 125512–02

• Solaris upgrade paths - You can upgrade the Solaris OS only to another update version of the same release. For example, you perform a rolling upgrade from Solaris 10 5/08 to Solaris 10 10/09. But you cannot perform a rolling upgrade to upgrade from a version of Solaris 9 to a version of Solaris 10.

• Hardware configuration changes - Do not make any changes to the cluster configuration during a rolling upgrade. For example, do not add to or change the cluster interconnect or quorum devices. If you need to make such a change, do so before you start the rolling upgrade procedure or wait until after all nodes are upgraded and the cluster is committed to the new software version.

• Duration of the upgrade - Limit the amount of time that you take to complete a rolling upgrade of all cluster nodes. After a node is upgraded, begin the upgrade of the next cluster node as soon as possible. You can experience performance penalties and other penalties when you run a mixed-version cluster for an extended period of time.

• Software configuration changes - Avoid installing new data services or issuing any administrative configuration commands during the upgrade.

• New-feature availability - Until all nodes of the cluster are successfully upgraded and the upgrade is committed, new features that are introduced by the new release might not be available.