Help: Switch Firmware Upgrade

Hitesh Thappa · ‎05-14-2010

Hi All,

We want to upgrade firmware on our cisco DS-C9513 and DS-C9509 switches.

Current firmware is 3.3(1c).

I have few questions regarding this as I have never performed an upgrade before.

1) How do I find current firmware release date?

2) The latest firmware that we can install and its release date.

3) whether Online upgrade is available?

4) Switch outage required?

Thanks in advance.

Filiph Westman · ‎05-14-2010

1) You may check date from release notes.

Cisco MDS 9000 Family Release Notes for Cisco MDS SAN-OS Release 3.3(1c)
11/Jul/2008

2) Depends on what modules you have installed. Every release note will state exactly what hardware that it support and release date. If you have any older gen-1 modules you have to stay at 3.3(5) otherwise you may go for 4.x or 5.x.

3) Upgrade is normally concurrent but always check RN as there is dependancies and some of the services may be non-concurrent (FCIP, iSCSI etc).

4) See point 3

Upgrade guide:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/switches/datacenter/mds9000/sw/4_1/upgrade/guide/upgrade.html

Release Notes:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps5989/prod_release_notes_list.html

// Filiph

Gary Ross · ‎06-05-2010

Be sure to check FN (Field Notices) prior to performing an upgrade. FN can be located here:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps5990/prod_field_notices_list.html

I've been burned by not being diligent reviewing these and have caused an outage in doing so.

Also, depending on you storage subsystem vendor (HP, IBM, EMC, HDS, etc.), they might have

list of supported SAN-OS/NX-OS versions that they have tested and approved.

Gary