[j-nsp] about 10.4R3 on EX

[Richard A Steenbergen]

On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 03:46:36PM -0500, Richard A Steenbergen wrote:
> The process of upgrading to a resilient dual-root partitions release 
> takes longer due to the additional step of upgrading the loader software 
> and a longer reboot time while the disk is reformattedto four partitions 
> during the reboot of the switch that completes the Junos OS upgrade. The 
> reformat increases the reboot time for EX2200, EX3200, EX4200, and 
> EX4500 switches by 5 to 10 minutes. For EX8200 switches, the reboot time 
> increases by 10 to 25 minutes per Routing Engine, and additional reboots 
> are required.

Also, in reading the upgrade process for the new boot loader, it says:

For an EX8200 switch with redundant Routing Engines, you must upgrade 
the loader software on both Routing Engines. You can upgrade the loader 
software on a Routing Engine only when it is master. Make sure that 
graceful Routing Engine switchover (GRES) and nonstop active routing 
(NSR) are disabled before you begin the upgrade.

The requirement that you can only upgrade it when the RE is the master 
is a pretty serious issue. This means you can't just pre-stage the 
upgrade on the backup RE and then switch over to it in a single move, 
you've got to take down the entire device for the duration of multiple 
reloads (4 apparently, 2 per RE * 2 REs) to complete the upgrade. Is 
there some other interpretation of this that I'm missing? From my quick 
lab testing it looks like you can at least get the jinstall and 25 
minute reformatting out of the way beforehand, but you've still got to 
be master to upgrade the actual loader.

-- 
Richard A Steenbergen <ras at e-gerbil.net>       http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras
GPG Key ID: 0xF8B12CBC (7535 7F59 8204 ED1F CC1C 53AF 4C41 5ECA F8B1 2CBC)