Wireless Access

Just after a bit of clarity around this, from the 6.3.1.16 release notes:

In a Master / Local deployment, all controllers need to be running the same ArubaOS version. Controllers ina Master / Local deployment do not support different ArubaOS.

I think the "correct" upgrade method is to load the software on both, then reboot them at the same time.. however, what I would like to do is move all the APs onto the local controller (we terminate across both master and locals and control distribution by lms), upgrade the master, reboot, move the APs back, so they upgrade, then do the local, reboot, the distribute the APs back.

Would I be ok doing this?

This way would have less impact on the site as a whole, as I could move small groups between the controllers, which may take a little longer, but give me more control...

I recommend you do it all at once.

Make sure you have an 60-90 minutes of a maintenance window to perform your upgrade , the additional 30-45 minutes is just in case you experience any issues but I have performed an upgrade for 2,300 APs in 30-40 minutes attached to a 7200 controllers.

lol.. yeah.. thats what I was hoping to avoid.. we dont really have maintenance windows!  Its often easier to just do stuff sometimes than the havoc it causes telling people something will be down...  If I could move all APs onto one controller, upgrade the other, then move the back in small groups, this would be much easier, and less disruptive!

Would I really have issues if, for a short period of time, the controlelrs were on 2 different versions, albeit minor ones..?

you might not be able to make config changes and push those.

but will it impact your wireless network as long as the APs don't reboot or such? i think you will  be fine, but if something happens and the APs are gonna bounce between both controllers your in a world of hurt.

The APs will reboot when you change their code revesion of course.

I have done the following:

Upgrade master, move the APs in batches to the master, then upgrade local and move them back.

It will only work if nothing has changed in the master-local communication process such that the configuration change to move an AP isn't broken between the two versions.

I would expect this to work, but you may find that you're suddenly upgrading all at once if it doesn't.

I like the new feature 'ap pre upload image'.

After you have loaded the new code onto the controllers, just enable the 'pre upload image' to the aps and let them all get their new firmware.

When you reboot the controller, the APs see the new version and simply just reboot into that version which they have already downloaded before.

Might give that a try.. afterall, if I do run into any issues moving a small group of APs back over to the upgraded controller, i can always just boot into original partition...

Do wonder if the image pre-load would work on the like sof the AP61 that may have limited memeory..

Cheers