HP EVA Updating Product Software Guide (xcs10001000) (5697-2423, December 2012)

Selecting a time to perform an online upgrade
To ensure the success of an online upgrade, selecting the appropriate time is essential. The two
factors that most affect this selection are:
• Criticality of business applications—Do not select a time that could affect critical business
applications.
• I/O load—Select a period of low I/O activity to ensure that the upgrade is completed as
quickly as possible, and to avoid disruptions to hosts and applications due to timeouts.
While there are advantages to performing an online upgrade, there are circumstances when it is
not advisable. Therefore, give careful consideration to your configuration and your application
deployment before making an attempt to do an online upgrade.
NOTE: When determining the appropriate time to do an online upgrade, ensure that no
configuration-related replication tasks are in process (creating or deleting DR groups, snapshots,
snapclones, or mirrorclones, or presenting to hosts).
Analyzing array I/O using HP Command View EVAPerf
Use the HP Command View EVAPerf tool included with HP P6000 Command View to gather and
analyze statistics on array utilization. This section provides recommendations on using HP Command
View EVAPerf to gather statistics to help identify periods of low array activity.
For more information about HP Command View EVAPerf, see the chapter “Monitoring array
performance” in the HP P6000 Command View User Guide. See Table 1 (page 6) for the link
to this document.
IMPORTANT: If you have an array-based management system, you can install and run HP
Command View EVAPerf on a supported Windows host connected to the 4400, P6300 EVA or
P6500 EVA.
Guidelines for using HP Command View EVAPerf
NOTE: Before using HP Command View EVAPerf, you may want to configure friendly names to
simplify identifying your arrays, virtual disks, and hosts. See the HP P6000 Command View User
Guide for more information about friendly names.
Use the following guidelines to ensure that you select an appropriate period to perform an online
upgrade of controller software:
• Identify a time period during which I/O load on the array will be low. During this time period,
run HP Command View EVAPerf to gather I/O data.
• Run HP Command View EVAPerf to gather I/O data during the chosen time period. For
example, if you suspect that I/O load may be low between midnight and 2 AM on Sunday
morning, run HP Command View EVAPerf during this period.
• If the I/O load pattern is low, capture the data over the same time period several more times
to ensure the low I/O load pattern is repeatable.
• After selecting a time period for the upgrade, perform the following tasks to ensure that I/O
activity does not increase unexpectedly during the upgrade:
◦ Alert all system users that they should minimize the load on the array during the time
period selected for the upgrade.
◦ Identify any automated processes that may increase the I/O load during the upgrade
period, including backup applications and scripts. Suspend these processes for the
duration of the upgrade.
22 Preparing for the upgrade