Upgrading Nexus Dashboard

Prerequisites and Guidelines

Before you upgrade your existing Nexus Dashboard cluster:

  • Ensure that you have read the target release's Release Notes for any changes in behavior, guidelines, and issues that may affect your upgrade.

  • You must be running Cisco Nexus Dashboard, Release 2.0.1 or later.

    If you are running Cisco Application Services Engine, follow the steps described in Upgrading From Application Services Engine instead.

  • The upgrade process is the same for all Nexus Dashboard form factors.

    Regardless of whether you deployed your cluster using physical servers, VMware ESX OVA, or in Azure or AWS cloud, you will use the target release's ISO image to upgrade.

  • Ensure that your current Nexus Dashboard cluster is healthy.

    You can check the system status on the System Overview page of the Nexus Dashboard GUI or by logging in to one of the nodes as rescue-user and executing the acs health command

  • You must disable any application installed in your cluster before the upgrade and re-enable them after the upgrade completes successfully.

    Before you re-enable the applications, you must configure the App Infra Services deployment profiles as described in the "App Infra Services" section of the Cisco Nexus Dashboard User Guide.

  • After upgrading to Release 2.0.2, we recommend upgrading all the applications to their latest versions.

  • Downgrading from Release 2.0.2 is not supported.

Upgrading Nexus Dashboard

This section describes how to upgrade an existing Nexus Dashboard cluster.

Before you begin

Procedure

Step 1

Download the Nexus Dashboard image.

  1. Browse to the Software Download page.

    https://software.cisco.com/download/home/286327743/type/286328258

  2. Choose the Nexus Dashboard version you want to download.

  3. Download the Cisco Nexus Dashboard image (nd-dk9.<version>.iso).

    Note

     

    You must download the .iso image for all upgrades, even if you used the VMware ESX .ova image or a cloud provider's marketplace for initial cluster deployment.

  4. (Optional) Host the image on a web server in your environment.

    When you upload the image to your Nexus Dashboard cluster, you will have an option to provide a direct URL to the image.

Step 2

Log in to your current Nexus Dashboard GUI as an Administrator user.

Step 3

Upload the new image to the cluster.

  1. Navigate to Operations > Firmware Management.

  2. Select the Images tab.

  3. From the Actions menu, select Add Image.

Step 4

Select the new image.

  1. In the Add Firmware Image window, select Local.

    Alternatively, if you hosted the image on a web server, choose Remote instead.

  2. Click Select file and select the ISO image you downloaded in the first step.

    If you chose to upload a remote image, provide the file path for the image on the remote server.

  3. Click Upload to add the image.

    The image will be uploaded to the Nexus Dashboard cluster, unpacked, processed, and made available for the upgrade. The whole process may take several minutes and you will be able to see the status of the process in the Images tab.

Step 5

Wait for the image status to change to Downloaded.

You can check the status of the image download progress in the Images.

Step 6

Set up the update.

  1. Navigate to Operations > Firmware Management.

  2. Select the Updates tab.

  3. Click Setup Update.

    The Firmware Update screen opens.

Step 7

Choose the upgrade image.

  1. In the Firmware Update > Version selection screen, select the firmware version you uploaded and click Next.

  2. In the Firmware Update > Confirmation screen, verify the details and click Begin Install.

    The installation progress window is displayed. You can navigate away from this screen while the update is in progress. To check on the update status at a later time, navigate to the Firmware Management screen and click View Details in the Last Update Status tile.

    This will set up the required Kubernetes images and services but will not switch the cluster to the new version. The cluster will continue to run the existing version until you activate the new image in the next step. The entire process may take up to 20 minutes.

Step 8

Activate the new image.

  1. Navigate back to the Operations > Firmware Management screen

  2. In the Last Update Status tile, click View Details.

  3. Click Activate.

  4. In the Activation Confirmation window, click Continue.

    It may take up to 20 additional minutes for all the cluster services to start and the GUI to become available. The page will automatically reload when the process is completed.

Step 9

If you are hosting multiple applications in the same cluster, configure deployment profiles for the App Infra Services.

If you are hosting only a single application in your Nexus Dashboard cluster, skip this step.

If you are co-hosting multiple applications in the same cluster, you must configure the App Infra Services with deployment profiles appropriate for your combination of applications and fabric sizes.

After the cluster upgrade is completed, follow the instructions described in the "App Infra Services" section of the Cisco Nexus Dashboard User Guide, which is also available in the products GUI.