[j-nsp] MX80 upgrade path 18.4R

[Richard McGovern]

I believe Juniper has at least slightly modified their view on upgrades.  The old "no more than 2 release jumps" was based upon when EEOL type releases existed; these do not really exist anymore.

AFAIK, the major issue with BIG SW jumps is with the config.  New SW may have depreciated old commands which might be in your config.  From my experience (primarily with QFX not MX) the SW upgrade works, but if new SW does not recognize some lines in the config, box will likely re-boot into a default config.  My suggestion is to test basic config upgrade from whatever code you are on to the new code.  If there is a config situation, you can then troubleshoot it prior to major multiple device upgrades.

IMHO, if you are going to run into a situation with an upgrade from SW 'X' to SW 'Z' you are very likely to find this same situation somewhere along the upgrade path of 'X' -> 'Y' -> 'Z', no matter how many 'Y' releases you use.

Better approach to whole subject is to not fall so far behind on Code upgrades.  I know, easier said then done.  I'd say more than 2 or 3 behind current is a risk, and I am all for "if it's not broken, why change".  So today's code stream is 20.x based.  You should at least be on some 17.x, or better yet in many cases 18.x.  You better be able to find a stable release in some version of these code streams.

My 2 cents worth.

Richard McGovern
Sr Sales Engineer, Juniper Networks
978-618-3342

I’d rather be lucky than good, as I know I am not good
I don’t make the news, I just report it


On 6/15/20, 5:01 AM, "nikosietf at gmail.com" <nikosietf at gmail.com> wrote:

    Needless to mention here that if you do an upgrade directly to 18.4 ignoring
    Juniper recommendations as someone has suggested if something goes wrong you
    are on your own.
    So I would never suggest this for a massive deployment.

    -----Original Message-----
    From: juniper-nsp <juniper-nsp-bounces at puck.nether.net> On Behalf Of Mark
    Tinka
    Sent: Monday, June 15, 2020 9:28 AM
    To: juniper-nsp at puck.nether.net
    Subject: Re: [j-nsp] MX80 upgrade path 18.4R



    On 14/Jun/20 19:16, nikosietf at gmail.com wrote:
    > It is true that the official path will tell you that you should follow
    > from
    > 15 to 16 then 17 then 18 but I did around 30+ upgrades from 16 to 18
    > without any problems.
    > >From 10 to 15 I guess you should go to 14 first but from 16 you can
    > >safely
    > move to 18 without any issues. The ones I am talking about are
    > non-issue upgrades.

    If I have to ring up 2014 again, I think you can go from 10 to 14, then to
    16.

    Once at 16, you should be able to skip all the way to current.

    But yoh, that MX80 will be slow!

    Mark.
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