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upgrade steps order on MSP environment

  • September 6, 2024
  • 4 replies
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B
Bit
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Hello Community,

I have an MSP environment with about 30 media agents. Some media agents are installed on customer site and it is not very easy to ask them to perform an upgrade.
Target version is  11.32

the infra is compsed of

  • Commserve VM (MSP site) is on version 11.28.117, Windows 2019,SQL 2016
  • WebServer VM  (MSP site internet facing) is on version 11.28.56, Windows 2019

media agents are used as primary or secondary depending of the storage policy/customer

ma1 (customer site) Windows 2019, 11.28.53
ma2 (customer site) Windows 2012 R2, 11.28.53
ma3 (customer site) Windows 2012 R2, 11.28.53
ma4 (customer site) Windows 2012 R2, 11.28.53
ma5 (customer site) Windows 2012 R2, 11.28.111

secondary media agents that receive auxiliary copies from the customers through VPN are hosted at MSP site 

A secondary MA can receive aux copy from different customers

msp_ma1 (MSP site) Windows 2012 R2, 11.28.111
msp_ma2 (MSP site) Windows 2012 R2, 11.28.117
msp_ma3 (MSP site) Windows 2012 R2, 11.28.53
msp_ma3 (MSP site) Windows 2012 R2, 11.28.91
msp_ma4  (MSP site) Windows 2012 R2, 11.28.91

regarding the media agent OS, the majority have Windows 2012 R2 version which is very old now.

We are currently defining the update steps

1 - update the commserve to 11.32 and update the SQL DB during the update

2 - update the WebServer (Web console) to 11.32

3 - Update only some media agent for the moment ?

4 - wait that all infra is on 11.32 to update the clients ?

Regarding media agent updates, I'm not sure.

Can I do a hardware refresh of msp_ma1 first (less critical one) then perform all MA update during the next months (one by one)?

during the slot of the update (2 months) is it a problem if a primary media agent is on version 11.28 and the secondary that revceives aux copies is on version 11.32 ?

Any advice would be appreciated.

I've tried to be as precise as possible, so if there's any information you need, please don't hesitate to ask.

 

Thanks !

Best answer by Onno van den Berg

But was has the age of the hardware to do with the inconsistency between the installed maintenance releases? Not sure what you definition of old is, but as long as it meets the requirements it is fully supported. As far as the update schedule I would indeed:

  1. Commserve + webserver
  2. MediaAgents (as for aux-copies between MAs. If you depend on specific MAs I would combine them both in the same update task)
  3. Clients and access nodes
View original

    Onno van den Berg
    Commvault Certified Expert
    Forum|alt.badge.img+19

    Hi @Bloopa91 just of our curiosity why do you maintain a diversity of difference in maintenance releases? Generally speaking it is best to make sure you run the same version across the environment. Especially the webserver, for example, is running a maintenance release that is almost 1,5 years old. This means you are lacking updates on security, like third-party components, on a components that is public facing. Before moving to FR32 I would first go to the latest FR28 maintenance release or at least go to the version that the CommServe runs on in order for you to prevent you from running into issues during the upgrade that have been captured already. Once the CommServe has been upgraded I would immediately upgrade all backend components to FR32 as this release is already quite mature.

    A
    Byte
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    • Amin91
    • Byte
    • September 9, 2024
    Onno van den Berg wrote:

    Hi @Bloopa91 just of our curiosity why do you maintain a diversity of difference in maintenance releases? Generally speaking it is best to make sure you run the same version across the environment. Especially the webserver, for example, is running a maintenance release that is almost 1,5 years old. This means you are lacking updates on security, like third-party components, on a components that is public facing. Before moving to FR32 I would first go to the latest FR28 maintenance release or at least go to the version that the CommServe runs on in order for you to prevent you from running into issues during the upgrade that have been captured already. Once the CommServe has been upgraded I would immediately upgrade all backend components to FR32 as this release is already quite mature.

    Hello @Onno van den Berg, Thanks for the feedback. I’ve just discover the infra 2 month ago. I am new IT provider on this project.

    That's the first thing I noticed to the customer. Updates have been neglected.

    The difficult part is that the hardware is also very old :)

    With other customers it is easier.
    I usually update Commserve + all MA.
    The clients are updated day by day. 
     

    But here, I have an old commserve, old media agents, old clients.

    My idea was also to update Commserve + webserver first.

     

    But ….

    I have primary media agents on customer side that send aux copies to a share MA on MSP site.
    if I update MA on MSP site first. I'll have a different version for the time of the update and I'm afraid there's going to be trouble.

    I'm in the process of planning a procedure so that it's as low-risk as possible.

     


     

     

     

    Onno van den Berg
    Commvault Certified Expert
    Forum|alt.badge.img+19

    But was has the age of the hardware to do with the inconsistency between the installed maintenance releases? Not sure what you definition of old is, but as long as it meets the requirements it is fully supported. As far as the update schedule I would indeed:

    1. Commserve + webserver
    2. MediaAgents (as for aux-copies between MAs. If you depend on specific MAs I would combine them both in the same update task)
    3. Clients and access nodes
    A
    Byte
    Forum|alt.badge.img+6
    • Amin91
    • Byte
    • September 10, 2024

    Hello Community, Hello @Onno van den Berg 

     

    thank you for taking the time to reply
     

    yes you're right, we could have just updated Commvault without a hardware refresh

    however :
    - some media agents will not meet the CPU requirements and some of them have Q&I problems, so a hardware refresh will be necessary. for a few part of them

    maybe do it in two parts ?

    1st part :

    • step 1 - update CS, webserver and all MA and clients to minimum maintenance release 11.28.124 (Sep 03, 2024)
    • step 2 - update Commserve + webserver to 11.32.65
    • step 3 - update secondary MA01 with all primary MA that are associated to with it (aux copies)
    • step 4 - update  secondary MA02 with all primary MA that are associated to with it (aux copies)

    and so on for all media egents prim & secondary that replicate to each other ….


    2nd part :

    once everything is in the same version 11.32

    Next it will be easier to perform a hardware refresh for some of the media agents

    easier at customer level mecause they have MA as VM, more difficult at MSP site Physical MA.

     

    Thanks again !
     

    Reply


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