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DataJanitor's avatar
DataJanitor
Icon for Altostratus rankAltostratus
May 06, 2021

Standalone BIG-IQ Upgrade Question

Hi,   Since it is my first time working with this product and first time doing an upgrade, I thought I would ask support for some simple direction.   All articles and videos I have been dir...
application delivery
BIG-IQ
  • AlexBCT's avatar
    AlexBCT
    May 06, 2021

    Hi,

     

    First things first; what version are you upgrading from/to? Seen that v8.0 has just come out, I expect you'll be upgrading from v7.x to v8.0, but please correct me if I'm wrong.

     

    To your questions;

    >> Am I choosing regular upgrade or rolling upgrade?

    Doesn't matter, as you only have 1 DCD and 1 CM. I think it doesn't even allow you to do a rolling upgrade due to insufficient DCD's.

     

    >> CM first or DCD first?

    DCD first, but the install procedure will take care of that. 

     

    >> Does kicking off on CM also upgrade DCD?

    Jup

     

    >> Do I have to upload the same image on both CM and DCD before starting the upgrade?

    Nope, the CM copies it across and install it. In some cases I've noticed that it doesn't actually start the upgrade after the copy. If that were the case, you can log in to the DCD CLI and manually start the upgrade process the same way as you would on a BigIP (tmsh install sys software image BIG-IQ-8.0.0.1-0.0.41.iso create-volume HD1.2 - or similar)

     

    If you are unfamiliar with the systems or software, it's always a good idea to build/have a test system on which you can do a test upgrade first, to get experience with the process and steps involved. Assuming you are working on a virtual BigIQ appliance, it's also a good idea to take VM snapshots (and backups of course) - if things go horribly wrong, you can always rollback to those.

     

    Lastly, regarding the documentation you are referring to, I believe the main reason why they talk about clustered/multi-DCD scenarios, is because that is the most complex (but common) scenario you may come across. If, as in your case, you only have single devices, then just follow the procedure once, rather than multiple times, making the guide easier ;)

     

    Hope this helps.

DataJanitor's avatar
DataJanitor
Icon for Altostratus rankAltostratus

See. That wasn't too hard to answer. Thank you kind sir.

 

v7 to v8, yes.

 

Honestly, this production environment is more like test. BIG-IQ was set up by a consultant and is not really being used for anything more than BIG-IP updates/upgrades, scheduled backups and qkview/ihealth uploads. No one wanted to even look at how to upgrade this. Worse yet, if it went down, no one would care.

 

I am just trying to learn and get it to a point where it can actually be used the way it was intended. People are set in their ways (go directly to each individual BIG-IP appliance, do not pass go, do not collect $200) so I am the only one even looking at it.

 

Oddly enough, with the all detailed videos and documentation, I would have felt more confident if I did have an HA CM with clustered DCDs. That is some good documentation. 😁

 

Paid money for this thing, should probably use it.

AlexBCT's avatar
AlexBCT
Icon for Cumulonimbus rankCumulonimbus
May 06, 2021

:)) Indeed!

Yeah, I've seen it a lot that BigIQ's get installed, but hardly ever get touched unfortunately. Since v7.1, they are getting more useful though and I'm actually upgrading one of my clusters to v8.0.0.1 as we speak! Hoping to find some more useful hidden gems in there somewhere. Just keep upgrading them for the next bunch of versions and I'm sure your colleagues will start to become interested in it... ;)

 

If you're happy with the answer, I'd be grateful if you can flag it as "answered" so the rest of the community can find it as well.