Cisco ACI Upgrade The Fabric

Cisco ACI Upgrade The Fabric

(1) High Level Steps

1. Read the release notes (cisco.com)
   • It tells you what you need to take into account
     • The possible upgrade scenario, from which version to which version
     • The caveats when jumping from version A to version B
2. Separate the Leaf/Spine switches into 2 groups
   • Group 1
   • Group 2
3. Download APIC software and Leaf/Spine software to the fabric
4. Verify critical hosts (ESX Servers) are dual connected
   • The best if they are using port-channel
   • For fabrice nodes (Leaf/Spine), there is a graceful disconnect out of the fabric, before the upgrade begins
5. Upgrade APIC controllers
6. Upgrade nodes in maintenance group 1
7. Upgrade nodes in maintenance group 2

(2) Upgrade Example

1. Download the software to the Fabric
   • Verify current versions (Figure 1)
   • Two softwares has been downloaded (APIC and Spine/Leaf) (Figure 2)
2. Upgrade the APIC Controllers
   • Schedule controller upgrade (Figure 3)
   • Notice there is important warning on top (Figure 4)
     • 1 Critical Faults
     • 2 Major Faults
   • You need to resolve the faults before proceed with the upgrade (Figure 5)
     • Details about resolving these, can be found in CiscoLive session (from Mioljub Jovanovic)
3. Upgrade the nodes (Leaf/Spine)
   • Schedule controller upgrade (Figure 6)
   • Create upgrade group 1 (Figure 7)
   • Create upgrade group 2 (Figure 8)