Upgrade overview
One complete controller release includes software for several components in this architecture, such as:
Each one may have its own version number, but all of them are grouped in a single controller version.
Apart from this, you can have other software components also managed from the controller.
Software upgrades for these components might be done separately as it will be covered in 'Upgrade tasks' section. This is a summary:
- Controllers: Control and management plane that will be the first devices to upgrade
- Access Points: They are grouped in Zones inside the controller. Once the controllers are upgraded to a new version or a new AP bundle release is uploaded to the controller, the corresponding AP software release will be available. Then, they can be upgraded per zone.
- Data plane: For this component there are two possible scenarios:
- Contoller physical appliances: This component is inside the appliance, and it gets upgraded at the same time as the controller.
- Physical or virtual data planes: This component is an independent device from the controller. It is upgraded from the controller WebUI, after the controllers have been upgraded, and using its own software file. It should not be upgraded before the controller, because management from controller would be lost.
- Application Signature package: This is used by AP Packet inspection features, and it is updated independently from Access Point firmware using its own software file. This update is done from controller WebUI.
- ICX Switch Management: They are grouped in Groups inside the controller. When a new ICX switch management software release is uploaded to the controller, the corresponding software release will be available. Then, they can be upgraded individually or per group.
Important: The controller upgrades are
only done to update the current cluster from the current version to a later one if
the
path is supported, and not to an older one. For that reason, a cluster or data plane
backup is strongly recommended as the rollback point.
There are other devices or components that will interact or are included in some of the previous devices like IOT, Cloudpath or SCI. But they have their own management system, so they are out of the scope of this guide.