Manual Chapter :
Upgrading BIG-IQ with a Data Collection Device from Version 6.0 and later with Minimal Downtime
Applies To:
Show VersionsBIG-IQ Centralized Management
- 7.1.0
Upgrading BIG-IQ with a Data Collection Device from Version 6.0 and later with Minimal Downtime
What is a minimal
downtime upgrade?
The minimal downtime upgrade process (also referred to as
rolling upgrade
) significantly reduces the amount of time your
system is offline while you are upgrading to the latest version. The degree to which your BIG-IQ
system and DCD cluster can maintain complete online function during upgrade depends on which
BIG-IP services you manage, and what kind of data you collect.- Operators using the BIG-IQ system to review alerts and events might notice slightly slower performance during the upgrade. Data might take a bit longer to refresh, and searches might take a little more time to run.
- You should not lose any ASM events or FPS alerts during the upgrade.
- You should maintain almost all of your AFM events during the upgrade.
- Statistics data is not collected during the upgrade.
- There is a brief downtime (approximately 5 seconds) when the primary BIG-IQ system is upgraded.
- There is another short downtime (less than a minute) when the secondary BIG-IQ is paired with the primary BIG-IQ.
Upgrading BIG-IQ version 6.0 and later with a data collection device cluster to version 7.1.0 with minimal downtime
7.1.0
with minimal downtimeWhat BIG-IQ setup does this upgrade process support?
The following upgrade supports upgrading BIG-IQ versions 6.x and 7.0 with a data collection cluster with at least three devices.
If your BIG-IQ is not currently running version 6.x or 7.0 and does not include a data collection device cluster with three or more devices, refer to the supported upgrade paths section in the release notes for this BIG-IQ version.
What happens during a BIG-IQ upgrade to version 7.1.0?
7.1.0
?This figure represents BIG-IQ in a high-availability (HA) configuration with a data collection device (DCD) cluster. The DCD cluster continues to collect data until you start the upgrade process. Data collection for all BIG-IP devices resumes only after all devices in the DCD cluster are upgraded and restarted. For this example, there are three data collection devices: one has already completed the upgrade to version 7.0, one is undergoing an upgrade to version 7.0, and one is collecting data as version 6.0.x.
This upgrade procedure with minimal downtime supports BIG-IQ configuration that include a minimum of three data collection devices. However, if the BIG-IQ system you are upgrading includes multiple zones, then in addition to the three DCD minimum, there must also be at least two DCDs in each zone before you can perform a rolling upgrade procedure
Tasks to complete before you start the upgrade process
Before upgrading F5 BIG-IQ Centralized Management, complete these
tasks.
Tasks | Additional information |
---|---|
Download the latest BIG-IQ software image and
Pre-upgrade Check tool from the F5 Downloads site. | To ensure that the pre-upgrade
script runs correctly, make sure you always download the latest version of
the tool from downloads.f5.com . |
Prepare your statistics for the upgrade
process | See Prepare statistics for upgrade. If your BIG-IQ CM is in an HA pair, ensure that
this process is completed on each node. |
Run the pre-upgrade check script on the primary
BIG-IQ by typing the following commands:
| This script verifies the following for BIG-IQ:
For additional detail about this
script, refer to the AskF5 article K15988343 on support.f5.com . |
Depending on the version of BIG-IQ software you are
upgrading from, the connectivity requirements for your system may be different
in the version you are upgrading to. Refer to the AskF5 Knowledge Center
article K15612: Connectivity requirements for the
BIG-IQ system on support.f5.com to confirm that the ports you need are configured
correctly. | Additional information on network connectivity
requirements is available in the Planning and
Implementing a BIG-IQ Deployment on support.f5.com |
Deploy any staged configuration changes to your managed BIG-IP devices. | When addressing configuration conflicts for each BIG-IP device, F5 recommends you use BIG-IP to override the configuration settings stored on BIG-IQ. |
Decide which disk volume you want to install the BIG-IQ software on. You must have at least two volumes to upgrade BIG-IQ. | If you don't have two volumes, you can add the second volume as part of the upgrade. |
If you are currently using a self-IP address for
device discovery, make a note of that IP address. | You'll need to enter that IP address when you
perform setup after you upgrade and reboot the BIG-IQ system. |
Upgrade all managed BIG-IP
devices to version 12.1 or later. | For you to manage BIG-IP
devices from BIG-IQ Centralized Management, the BIG-IP devices must be running
version 12.1 or later. |
Run the following command to view all daemons
running on the BIG-IQ, and their status: admin@(ip-10-1-1-4)(cfg-sync
Standalone)(Active)(/Common)(tmos)# show /sys service . | Make a note of the daemons running on BIG-IQ and
their status. After the upgrade, verify that all daemons are running as
expected. |
Prepare statistics for upgrade
Before you begin the upgrade process, use the
following steps to prevent statistics migration errors. This procedure is done to ensure
that all statistics stored on your pre-upgrade version are properly migrated over the
course of the upgrade. To do so, you must modify the active and standby machines of the
BIG-IQ CM. If you do not complete this task, there is a possibility that your statistics
will not be migrated to your upgraded version.
You must complete this entire process for both the active and
standby machines of BIG-IQ CM.
- Log into the BIG-IQ command line
- Use a text editor to create the following customized startup script in the file/config/startup_analytics_upgrade_change.sh.
- Add the following lines to the file#!/bin/bash es_client_file="/var/config/appiq/upgrade/es_client.py" upgrade_analytics_data_5_6_file="/var/config/appiq/upgrade/upgrade_analytics_data_5_6.py" appiq_version=`grep -P -o "Version: [\w.]+" /VERSION|cut -d ':' -s -f2|tr -d '[:space:]'` appiq_product=`grep -P -o "Product: [\w.-]+" /VERSION|cut -d ':' -s -f2|tr -d '[:space:]'` timeout_perl_cmd="perl -p -i -e 's/(timeout=)14400/\${1}144000/g'" reindex_tries_cmd="perl -p -i -e 's/(\s+.*reindex\(.*tries = )10(.*)/\${1}1\${2}/g'" reindex_no_delete_tries_cmd="perl -p -i -e 's/(\s+.*reindex_no_delete\(.*tries = )10(.*)/\${1}1\${2}/g'" function log() { ###log error messages### [ ! "$1" ] && return 0 /bin/echo -e "[$(/bin/date +%m/%d/%y\ %H:%M:%S.%2N)] - $1" >> /var/log/upgrade_analytics_data.log } if [ $appiq_product != "BIG-IQ" ]; then log "not \"BIG-IQ\" product, (found: $appiq_product)! exiting..." exit 99 fi if [ $appiq_version != "7.1.0" ]; then log "not \"7.1.0\" version, (found: $appiq_version)! exiting..." exit 99 fi log "Modifying \"$es_client_file\" file" if [ -f $es_client_file ]; then $(eval "$timeout_perl_cmd $es_client_file") $(eval "$reindex_tries_cmd $es_client_file") $(eval "$reindex_no_delete_tries_cmd $es_client_file") log "\"$es_client_file\" file has been modified!" else log "file \"$es_client_file\" doesn't exist...skipping parsing!" fi log "Modifying \"$upgrade_analytics_data_5_6_file\" file" if [ -f $upgrade_analytics_data_5_6_file ]; then $(eval "$timeout_perl_cmd $upgrade_analytics_data_5_6_file") log "\"$upgrade_analytics_data_5_6_file\" file has been modified!" else log "file \"$upgrade_analytics_data_5_6_file\" doesn't exist...skipping parsing!" fi
- Save your changes to/config/startup_analytics_upgrade_change.shand exit the text editor
- Enable executable mode for the/config/startup_analytics_upgrade_change.shfile, and type the following command:chmod +x /config/startup_analytics_upgrade_change.sh
- Change permissions on/config/startupfile to allow modifications by typing the following command:chmod +w /config/startup
- Using a text editor, edit the/config/startupfile, and append the following line to the end of the file:/config/startup_analytics_upgrade_change.sh &The ampersand symbol (&) at the end of the line is required.
- Save changes to/config/startupand exit the text editor.
Once you have completed your pre-upgrade task
list, you can proceed to the upgrade process. Depending on the volume of statistics in
your pre-upgrade system, the migration process to your upgraded system can vary from one
hour to four days.
Following the upgrade to version 7.1, you can verify the
statistics migration by checking the log file
/var/log/upgrade_analytics_data.log
of the active BIG-IQ
CM. The end of the log should include the
text:REINDEX statistics completed successfully
BIG-IQ pre-upgrade checklist
To ensure that your upgrade goes smoothly, F5 recommends that you
perform a few system checks. Perform this test at least a day or so before you upgrade in
case you discover any issues that take longer than expected to resolve. Going through this
list ahead of time gives you a chance to resolve any issues before the clock is ticking on
your upgrade window.
- Verify that you have completed the pre-upgrade tasks. These are detailed in the articleTasks to complete before you start the upgrade processonsupport.f5.com.)
- Verify that your statistics are prepared for migration to the upgraded system. For more information, see Prepare statistics for upgrade.
- Verify that the software version of the BIG-IP devices managed by the BIG-IQ you are updating are at or beyond the minimum supported version. (For details on how to do this, refer to the AskF5 article K34133507 onsupport.f5.com.)
- Depending on the version of BIG-IQ software you are upgrading from, the connectivity requirements for your BIG-IQ system may be different in the version you are upgrading to. Refer to K15612 onsupport.f5.comto confirm that the ports you need are configured correctly.
- If you plan to gather performance Analytics data for the BIG-IP devices managed by the BIG-IQ you are updating confirm that the managed devices are at or beyond version 13.1.1, and provisioned with the AVR service.
- If you have custom settings for the DCD statistics data collection retention or aggregation, these custom settings are not automatically retained over the upgrade process. Save your data retention and aggregation settings before you begin the upgrade, so you can manually enter your custom settings, once your upgrade is complete. See.
- Check that you have sufficient disk space for the upgrade. For version 7.1.0, the minimum disk space requirement increased by 10%. When you calculate the extra amount of space required for this update, make sure to consider:
- the amount of space your current installation consumes
- the space needed for the upgrade
- an additional 10% to meet this new requirement.
If thevarpartition for any of the devices in your cluster was extended before you upgraded, you must extend thevarpartition for that device before the upgrade can succeed.(For details on how to check the size of theFor version 7.1.0 and later, thevarpartition needs to be at least 2.5 times larger than it needed to be for earlier BIG-IQ versions.varpartition on your system, refer toCheck the volume sizes on your current BIG-IQ installationandCheck the volume sizes required by the software you want to installinF5 BIG-IQ Centralized Management Disk Space Managementonsupport.f5.com. For details on how to extend a disk volume, refer toResizing VE Disk Volume WorkflowsinF5 BIG-IQ Centralized Management Disk Space Managementonsupport.f5.com). - Verify that your BIG-IQ VE has sufficient memory and CPUs for the configuration that you plan to deploy. (For details on how to do this, refer toDetermine the resources required for deploymentinPlanning and Implementing a BIG-IQ Centralized Management Deploymentonsupport.f5.com).
- Examine the health of the devices you plan to upgrade. Make sure to inspect the BIG-IQ primary and secondary devices as well as each DCD in the cluster. (For details on how to do this, refer toCheck the health of devices in a DCD clusterinPlanning and Implementing a BIG-IQ Centralized Management Deploymentonsupport.f5.com).
- Re-activate the licenses on the devices you plan to upgrade to make sure that the service contract date is up to date. Make sure to do this for the BIG-IQ primary and secondary devices, as well as each DCD in the cluster. (For details on how to do this, refer to the F5 Knowledge Center articleK15365onsupport.f5.com).
- Confirm the zone configuration of the DCDs that you plan to upgrade and for the devices managed by the BIG-IQ systems you plan to upgrade. If a device is configured to be in a zone that does not have DCDs in it, statistics for that device will not be collected after the upgrade.If the BIG-IQ system you are upgrading includes multiple zones, then in addition to the three DCD minimum, there must also be at least two DCDs in each zone before you can perform a rolling upgrade procedure.
- To view the zone configuration for a DCD, navigate toand note the zone.
- To view the zone configuration for a device, navigate toDevices, click the name of the device, then clickSTATISTICS COLLECTIONand note the zone.
Check pre-upgrade AS3 version
If the version of AS3 software that is running on the BIG-IQ you are
upgrading is newer than the AS3 software version that installs with the upgrade, then
you need to note that AS3 version before you upgrade, so you can restore it as part of
the post upgrade process.
Steps for determining the pre-upgrade AS3 version are available in
the F5 knowledge base article K54909607. Please refer to this article if you are
upgrading a BIG-IQ for which a newer version of AS3 software has been installed.
Summary of tasks to upgrade a BIG-IQ system with data collection
devices with minimal downtime
The upgrade process can take up to several
hours depending on how many BIG-IP devices you are managing.
Preparing for an upgrade:
- Download the BIG-IQ software image from the F5 Downloads site.
- Upload the BIG-IQ software image to BIG-IQ.
- Confirm alerts and events can be sent to an alternative device in the data collection device cluster.
- Upgrade the primary BIG-IQ and the data collection devices to the latest version.
- Upload the software image to the secondary BIG-IQ system.
- Manually upgrade the secondary BIG-IQ system.
- Add the secondary BIG-IQ system back to the primary BIG-IQ system.
- Re-discover devices and re-import services.
- If you plan to deploy applications to a VMware cloud environment, install the vCenter host root certificate on BIG-IQ.