Updating the system software

The system update process involves the updating of your entire IBM Spectrum Virtualize™ environment.

Attention: If you encounter a memory DIMM failure to any node during the update process, stop immediately. Follow this procedure to ensure a successful update:

Replace the DIMM on the failing node according to your hardware manufacturer's instructions.
Remove the node that has the DIMM failure from the system:
```
svctask rmnode object_id | object_name
```
Check the status of the remaining nodes in the system and the update status:
```
svcinfo lssoftwareupgradestatus
```
If the partner node is up and the system update status is updating, update the node in service mode and add it back into the system:
```
svctask addnode
```
Refer to the addnode command information for possible flags. The update continues.
If the partner node is up and the system update status is stalled, decide whether to complete the update (roll forward) or cancel (roll back). Your decision is partly based on how far through the update you were when the failure occurred. You can roll forward with either a service update strategy or node removal (rmnode command).
- Roll forward (service update): To manually complete the update, use a service mode update process to update the remaining down-level nodes. After all the nodes are running the same level, the update is committed.
- Roll forward (rmnode command): Use the rmnode command procedure only if the update is more than or equal to 50% complete.
- Roll back (cancel the update):
```
 svctask applysoftware -abort -force
```
  The -force parameter is required if one or more nodes are offline.
  Important: Using the -force parameter might result in a loss of access. Choose this option only if the partner node (of your offline node) is at the original code level.
  Updated nodes are rolled back to the original software level, one node at a time.
Verify that all nodes are back and running the same firmware.
Enter the following command:
```
svcconfig backup
```
Verify the health of the system.

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

www.ibm.com/support

Allow up to a week to plan your tasks, go through your preparatory update tasks, and complete the update of the IBM Spectrum Virtualize 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 system updates each of the nodes systematically. The automatic method is the preferred procedure for updating software 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 IBM Spectrum Virtualize code.
3	Ensure that multipathing drivers in the environment are fully redundant.
4	Update your system.
5	Update other devices in the IBM Spectrum Virtualize 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.

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

Software for the system is 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:

www.ibm.com/support

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 IBM Spectrum Virtualize 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

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. However, if you have problems with an update, 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 IBM® Subsystem Device Driver (SDD) or IBM 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 IBM System Storage Multipath Subsystem Device Driver User's Guide for more information about the datapath query commands.

If you are using IBM 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.

After the system update

The audit log content that was on your system before the update is sent to a file in the/dumps/audit directory on the configuration node. The audit log will now contain content that occurs from commands that are run after a successful update of the system.