[gpfsug-discuss] Upgrade Scale from 5.1.2-8 to 5.2.0-1

[Peter Childs]

We are attempting to upgrade out Scale cluster which is currently running 5.1.2-8 a rather old LTS version of scale..... To 5.2.0-1 so we can upgrade from a rather old OS. (Otherwise known as CentOS7)

We have an issue where by the freshly deployed nodes with 5.2.0-1 Scale is Crashing and it looks to be caused by a bug fix since 5.1.2-8 (I suspect its the one for hc_flash_7100841_00132_notok which is in 5.1.2-15 I think) 

Assuming once we've upgraded everything our cluster(s) will be stable again, I'm trying to work out how to upgrade everything without causing everything to be worse before it gets better. ie we want an upgrade to fix stuff rather than breaking it before it works.

I'm trying to work out when to upgrade our NSD Servers, if we need to do them ASAP to improve the new servers running 5.2.0-1 or if we ought to leave them till last to not cause critical kit to be unstable.

I'm also trying to work out if its worth the effort of upgrading the old nodes at all, as that's quite a bit of extra work.... and if 5.2.0-1 was stable I would not be looking at upgrading them at all.

If anyone has worked out a good order to upgrade a scale cluster then that might help ie is it best to upgrade Quorum and NSD servers early or late within any upgrade cycle, or leave them till last.

Thanks

Peter Childs
ITS Research Storage
Queen Mary University of London.