Upgrading the cluster subsystem

The cluster subsystem can be upgraded in two ways:

1. Major upgrade which involves downtime need cluster shutdown restart. In this case you must:

   1. Suspend the companionship by running sp_companion suspend command as described in Using Sybase Failover in A High Availability System.

   2. Offline the resource groups of primary and secondary companions on both nodes. Make sure this shuts down both the companion server and their corresponding resource groups are not automatically brought online until the cluster system upgrade is complete.

      Otherwise, when a node is booted after or during the cluster system upgrade, automatically all resource groups may get started on that node leading to unnecessary failovers. For example, in SunCluster3.0 you should “unmanage” the resource groups besides “offline” so that the resource groups are not brought online automatically during intermittent restarts of the cluster system upgrade.

   3. Upgrade the cluster subsystem per instructions provided by the cluster system vendor.You may find upgrade options to migrate the current resource groups to the new or desired cluster version. If such an option is not available (or the resource groups get deleted or corrupted), then you will need to recreate the resource groups and configure them appropriately after the cluster system upgrade.

      See the Cluster documentation for more information on creating resource groups or migrating resource groups during upgrade.

   4. Online the resource groups. This should bring primary and secondary companions on their respective nodes.

   5. Resume the companionship by running sp_companion resume command as described in Using Sybase Failover in A High Availability System.

2. A minor upgrade does not involve a total cluster downtime. In this case, a node is failed over to another node and upgraded one at a time. Assuming ASE1 is the primary companion on node N1, and ASE2 is secondary companion running on node N2, upgrade steps are:

   1. Upgrade Primary Companion:

      1. Failover ASE1 from N1 to N2. This can be achieved by relocating the primary resource group to N2 or by shutting down ASE1.

      2. Upgrade cluster subsystem on N1 (based on the upgrade instructions provided by the vendor).

      3. Failback ASE1 from N2 to N1. Refer to corresponding cluster chapter in Using Sybase Failover in A High Availability System for more details on Adaptive Server failback.

   2. Upgrade Secondary Companion:

      1. If you are using asymmetric configuration:

         • Offline secondary resource group and make sure ASE2 is shutdown. Note that ASE2 is not available during this upgrade.

         • Upgrade cluster subsystem on N2 (based on the upgrade instructions provided by the vendor).

         • Start ASE2 by bringing online secondary resource group on N2.

      2. If you are using symmetric configuration, follow the steps in “Upgrade Primary Companion” mentioned above for ASE2:

         1. Failover ASE2 from N2 to N1.

         2. Upgrade cluster subsystem on N2 (based on the upgrade instructions provided by the vendor).

         3. Failback ASE2 from N1 to N2.

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