Updating the system

The system update process involves the updating of your entire Lenovo Storage V7000 environment.

Start here to update to version 7.5 or later from version 7.4 or later.

If you are updating from a release previous to version 7.4.0, follow the instructions in that previous release. You are required, however, to confirm the update, which is not included in the instructions for your current release. After you follow the instructions for your release, return to the corresponding final instructions in this version. Follow the step that refers to receiving a status message and confirming the update.

Restriction: When you update a system from version 7.1.0 or earlier to version 7.2.0 or later, you must stop any Global Mirror relationships that have their secondary volume on the system that is being updated. You can restart these relationships after the update process completes.

For the most recent information about restrictions before you update, search for flashes, alerts, and bulletins at this support site:

http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/products/servers/lenovo-storage

Allow up to a week to plan your tasks, go through your preparatory update tasks, and complete the update of the Lenovo Storage V7000 environment. The update procedures can be divided into the general processes that are shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Updating tasks
Sequence	Update task
1	Before you update, become familiar with the prerequisites and tasks involved. Decide whether you want to update automatically or update manually. During an automatic update procedure, the clustered systemupdates each of the nodes systematically. The automatic method is the preferred procedure for updatingsoftware on nodes. However, you can also update each node manually.
2	Ensure that CIM object manager (CIMOM) clients are working correctly. When necessary, update these clients so that they can support the new version of Lenovo Storage V7000 code.
3	Ensure that multipathing drivers in the environment are fully redundant.
4	Update your system.The system update includes component firmware updates. The drive firmware update is a separate process.
5	Update other devices in the Lenovo Storage V7000 environment. Examples might include updating hosts and switches to the correct levels.
Note: The amount of time can vary depending on the amount of preparation work that is required and the size of the environment. Generally allow approximately 1 hour per node for an update. A manual update will most likely take longer.

Attention: If you experience failover issues with multipathing driver support, resolve these issues before you start normal operations.

Firmware and software for the system and its attached adapters are tested and released as a single package. The package number increases each time that a new release is made.

Some code levels support updates only from specific previous levels, or the code can be installed only on certain hardware types. If you update to more than one level above your current level, you might be required to install an intermediate level. For example, if you are updating from level 1 to level 3, you might need to install level 2 before you can install level 3. For information about the prerequisites for each code level, see this website:

http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/products/servers/lenovo-storage

Attention: Ensure that you have no unfixed errors in the log and that the system date and time are correctly set. Start the fix procedures, and ensure that you fix any outstanding errors before you attempt to concurrently update the code.

The update process

During the automatic update process, each node in a system is updated one at a time, and the new code is staged on the nodes. While each node restarts, there might be some degradation in the maximum I/O rate that can be sustained by the system. After all the nodes in the system are successfully restarted with the new code level, the new level is automatically committed.

During an automatic code update, each node of a working pair is updated sequentially. The node that is being updated is temporarily unavailable and all I/O operations to that node fail. As a result, the I/O error counts increase and the failed I/O operations are directed to the partner node of the working pair. Applications do not see any I/O failures. When new nodes are added to the system, the update package is automatically downloaded to the new nodes from the Lenovo Storage V7000 system.

The update can normally be done concurrently with normal user I/O operations. However, performance might be impacted. If any restrictions apply to the operations that can be done during the update, these restrictions are documented on the product website that you use to download the update packages. During the update procedure, most of the configuration commands are not available.Only the following commands are operational from the time the update process starts to the time that the new code level is committed, or until the process is backed out:

All information commands
The rmnodecanister command

To determine when your update process completes, you are notified through the management GUI. If you are using the command-line interface, issue the lsupdate command to display the status of the update.

Because of the operational limitations that occur during the update process, the code update is a user task. If you have problems with an update, however, contact your support center. Do not try to troubleshoot update problems without technical assistance. For further directions, see the topic about how to get information, help, and technical assistance.

Multipathing driver

Before you update, ensure that the multipathing driver is fully redundant with every path available and online. You might see errors that are related to the paths that are going away (fail over) and the error count increasing during the update. When the paths to the nodes are back, the nodes fall back to become a fully redundant system. After the 30-minute delay, the paths to the other node go down.

If you are using LenovoSubsystem Device Driver (SDD) or Lenovo Subsystem Device Driver Device Specific Module (SDDDSM) as the multipathing software on the host, increased I/O error counts are displayed by the datapath query device or datapath query adapter commands to monitor the state of the multipathing software. For more information, see the Lenovo System Storage Multipath Subsystem Device Driver User's Guide for more information about the datapath query commands.

If you are using Lenovo Subsystem Device Driver Path Control Module (SDDPCM) as the multipathing software on the host, increased I/O error counts are displayed by the pcmpath query device or pcmpath query adapter commands to monitor the state of the multipathing software.

Metro Mirror and Global Mirror relationships

When you update software on a system that has secondary volumes of running Metro Mirror or Global Mirror relationships, write performance might be degraded on the primary volumes, and Global Mirror relationships can be automatically stopped with one or more errors with error code 1920. You might want to proactively stop such relationships before you update the software to avoid the write performance degradation, and restart the relationships after the update completes.

To activate the additional hardware or to set the legacy flag so up-level systems can work with earlier systems, run the following command:

chnodecanisterhw node id

Where node_name | node_id (required) specifies the node to be modified. The variable that follows the parameter is either:

The node name that you assigned when you added the node to the system
The node ID that is assigned to the node (not the worldwide node name)

To disable the additional hardware, run the following command:

chnodecanisterhw -legacy  software_levelnode id

Where software_level indicates the level of software the node must interoperate with. If the value is less than 6.4.0, then the node configures its hardware to support only a maximum of four Fibre Channel or FCoE ports. (Ideally, specify 6.3.0.)

And node_name | node_id (required) specifies the node to be modified. The variable that follows the parameter is either:

The node name that you assigned when you added the node to the system
The node ID that is assigned to the node (not the worldwide node name)

For a four-node Lenovo Storage V7000, when an enclosure is added to a system, the system checks for (started) partnerships and calculate the lowest software level of the partnered systems. This software level is passed to the enclosure that is being added to the system. The node processes the equivalent of a chnodecanisterhw -legacysoftware_level command as it joins the system.