Upgrading the Software System Management and Maintenance
Polycom, Inc. 395
All the clusters in a supercluster must be running compatible software
versions. Patch releases will generally be compatible, and can be installed
using the procedure in “Basic Upgrade Procedures” on page390.
But major and minor version upgrades will not be compatible. An
incompatible version software upgrade on all clusters in a supercluster
requires careful planning because it’s not possible to upgrade a cluster to an
incompatible software version while it’s a member of the supercluster. Each
cluster must be upgraded individually.
You have two options for upgrading a supercluster:
•Perform the cluster upgrades in a system-wide maintenance window
during which all the clusters can be shut down and the service is
completely unavailable. This is by far the simplest and fastest method,
taking as little as an hour or two.
•Perform the cluster upgrades incrementally so that some system capacity
(although greatly reduced) remains available during the process. This
method is far more complex, error-prone, and lengthy. It can easily take
five or more times as long.
During the course of an incremental upgrade, some clusters will be on the
new software version while others are still on the older version, effectively
creating two separate superclusters until all the clusters are upgraded.
This requires significant configuration changes in order for some level of
service to remain available, and those configuration changes must be
repeated again and again as each cluster is removed from the original
supercluster, upgraded, and added to the new supercluster.
Before deciding to undertake an incremental upgrade, carefully read and
consider the information in “Factors to Consider for an Incremental
Supercluster Upgrade” on page396.
Caution
We strongly recommend upgrading a supercluster only during a system-wide
maintenance window when there are no calls or conferences on the system and all
clusters can be taken out of service. This makes the process significantly faster and
easier.
If you must upgrade incrementally, be aware of the limited capacity available at any
given point in the process. It’s advisable to ensure that there is little or no
conferencing activity in any given territory until after the new supercluster has been
created and territory responsibilities for that territory have been reassigned to a
cluster in the new supercluster.
To minimize the time required for an upgrade:
•If the upgrade requires a new license, obtain the license keys ahead of time.
•Download a recent backup and upload the upgrade package file to all clusters
in the supercluster ahead of time.