Nonstop software upgrade enables you to upgrade a QFabric system with minimal packet loss and maximum uptime. This feature introduces several high availability improvements to the QFabric system software upgrade process, including:

Note: Before you perform a nonstop software upgrade, contact JTAC to perform a pre-upgrade health check on the QFabric system.

• Upgrading members of a Director group or Node group one at a time so that one device in the group is always operational
• Switching mastership of Routing Engine processes to the backup Director device before upgrading the master Director device
• Rebooting Interconnect devices and fabric control Routing Engines one at a time, so that one Interconnect device or one fabric control Routing Engine is always operational
• Switching mastership of a Node group to the backup Node device before upgrading the master Node device
• Specifying an upgrade group if you want all Node devices in a Node group to be upgraded in parallel (which shortens the time of the upgrade)
• Rebooting devices automatically as part of the nonstop upgrade process

When performing a nonstop upgrade, start with the Director group upgrade, then issue the fabric upgrade, and end with the Node group upgrades.

Note: Because there is no redundancy for Node groups containing a single Node device, traffic loss occurs when the device reboots during the upgrade. For node-groups defined with two node-devices, both must be online in order for upgrade to succeed.

Note: Before you install the software, we recommend that you back up your current configuration files by issuing the request system software configuration-backup command.

Note: Before you can perform a nonstop software upgrade in your QFabric system, you must first upgrade your system to Junos OS Release 12.2 by using a conventional upgrade method such as issuing the request system software add component all command.

This topic describes the following tasks:

To download the software package:

Retrieve the software from the location in which you downloaded it. To do this, issue the request system software download command. The software package is copied from where you downloaded it and is placed locally on the QFabric system.

Note: If you reboot any Node groups or Interconnect devices after you perform a nonstop upgrade on the Director group, these devices are upgraded to the same version of software that is running on the Director group.

To upgrade the software on the Director devices in a Director group:

• Issue the request system software nonstop-upgrade director-group package-name command.

  For example:

  user@qfabric> request system software nonstop-upgrade director-group jinstall-qfabric-12.2X50-D10.3.rpm

Before you perform a nonstop upgrade on the Interconnect devices and other fabric-related components, verify that both Director devices in the Director group are online. Both Director devices must be online before you attempt to perform a nonstop upgrade. To do verify that both Director devices are online, issue the show fabric administration inventory director-group status command.

To install the software on the Interconnect device and other components in the fabric:

Upgrade groups enable two or more Node devices in a Node group, or an entire Node group, to be rebooted at the same time. If you do not create an upgrade group, the Node devices are upgraded one at a time. Before performing a nonstop upgrade on a Node group, create an upgrade group and include the devices you want to reboot at the same time.

Note: If you add Node devices that have links to the same link aggregation group (LAG), there might be traffic loss.

When you perform a nonstop software upgrade on a network Node group, the Node devices in the network Node group are upgraded in a serial fashion except when upgrade groups are configured. If you perform a nonstop upgrade on a redundant server Node group, both Node devices must be online for a successful upgrade. If one of the Node devices is no longer available, remove it from the configuration before you perform the nonstop software upgrade. If you perform a nonstop upgrade on a Node group with only one Node device, traffic loss occurs while the Node device is rebooting.

Note: You can upgrade multiple Node groups with this command. However, if more than one Node group is specified, there may be traffic loss depending on the topology of the network.

To install software on a Node group:

• Issue the request system software nonstop-upgrade node-group node-group-name package-name command.

  To perform a nonstop upgrade on one Node group:

  user@qfabric> request system software nonstop-upgrade node-group nodegroup1 jinstall-qfabric-12.2X50-D10.3.rpm

  To perform a nonstop upgrade on more than one Node group:

  user@qfabric> request system software nonstop-upgrade node-group [nodegroup1 nodegroup2 nodegroup3] jinstall-qfabric-12.2X50-D10.3.rpm