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eroach5's avatar
eroach5
Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
May 21, 2018

Upgrading F5's. In this case from 11.6.1 to 11.6.3.1

I have a philosophical question about upgrading LTM. (in this case, 11.6.1 to 11.6.3.1 – HA pairs) What I do is upgrade the primary, upon boot the secondary will obviously become the primary (on the old code) and upon coming back online the original primary will become exactly that. With the new code. Then I have the end users test. If all seems normal I then upgrade the secondary F5.

 

The above saves me various steps and time. And the back out is also easier. (BTW, my change windows are very narrow for any upgrades.)

 

Also, I have re-validated the license keys in the past and sometimes I do not. There seems to be no issues with not re-validating the license keys. Is there a reason to re-validate the license keys when the license on the box is valid?

 

Please let me know your thoughts.

 

application delivery
LTM

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  • Martijn_van_de1's avatar
    Martijn_van_de1
    Icon for Cirrus rankCirrus
    May 22, 2018

    Hi,

     

    I always re-initialize the license. You are right. Sometimes it is needed and sometimes it is not. It is a very easy step, so it is someting I always do before an upgrade.

     

    What I should do, is force the Active offline so the Standby takes over. That way you have a early test to see if the Standby works fine. The HA pair might be OK, but maybe something is wrong with the connecting switches or routers. If all is OK, you can upgrade the Active appliance with the knowledge the Standby can take over.

     

    I you do a fail-over during the upgrade and reboot of the Active appliance and something is not right on the Standby, you will have to wait for the Active one to come back online again.

     

    But you plan is something I would do. Upgrade one appliance and test if all is working. If not, do a roll back. If all is OK, upgrade the Standby also.

     

    Don't forget creating Archives and to store them on a external location.

     

    Good luck!!

     

    Martijn