Types of Upgrade
System Installation, Configuration, and Management / Upgrading the Delphix Engine / Upgrading the Delphix Engine: an Overview / Types of Upgrade

Each Delphix Engine upgrade image contains both Delphix Management software and software for DelphixOS, the operating system that runs Delphix. Once you have uploaded an image, you can see this information in the Server Setup, Upgrade Images view, on the Details tab of the image, as described in Uploading the Upgrade Image.

You can determine which type of upgrades are applicable by looking up your current version of the Delphix Engine (visible in Server Setup > System Upgrade Management) and the version to which you are upgrading in the Upgrade Matrix.

Application-only Upgrade

If the current version, and the uploaded version being upgraded to, have the same OS version, then an upgrade of the OS is not necessary.  As a result, when upgrading to this target version, the appliance automatically detects that this upgrade does not require a system reboot, so VDBs will not be affected during the upgrade window and can be used normally.

However, the following downtime will still be observed:

  • The user interface, API and CLI (Command Line Interface) will only be available to the user performing the upgrade (only with basic functionality related to the upgrade).

  • Policies execution will be delayed until after the upgrade has completed.

  • dSources will stop refreshing from production.

  • Replication will be suspended.

  • Any jobs not pertaining to the upgrade will be cancelled (and resumed after upgrade if supported).


Full Upgrade

If the current version, and the uploaded version being upgraded to, do not have the same OS version, then a DelphixOS upgrade will also be performed at the same time as the application upgrade by default. As a result, on top of the downtime observed from an application-only upgrade described above, you will also observe that:

  • VDBs will not be available during the upgrade window

The length of downtime varies based on a number of factors, including: the number of VDBs on the engine, the historical usage of the engine, and the performance of target hosts.


Deferred DelpixOS Upgrade

If the current version, and the uploaded version being upgraded to, do not have the same OS version, you may still have the option to defer upgrading the DelphixOS, and perform just the application upgrade.  You will still face the same downtime as an application-only upgrade described above, but a deferred DelphixOS upgrade may be advantageous when it is hard to schedule for VDB downtime.

To check to see if a deferred DelphixOS upgrade is supported, the current OS version must meet the “Minimum OS Version” requirement of your uploaded version.  This check can be done in the Upgrade Images view, or in the Command Line Interface (CLI).  For example:

delphix system version> list
NAME     STATUS             OSRUNNING  BUILDDATE               
4.0.6.0  UPLOADED           false      2014-06-17T03:12:48.000Z
4.0.5.0  CURRENTLY_RUNNING  true       2014-06-10T14:41:28.000Z


Here, the running OS comes from version 4.0.5.0. You want to see if the OS version in 4.0.5.0 meets the minimum requirements for version 4.0.6.0, to which you are upgrading:

delphix system version> select 4.0.5.0 get osVersion
   4.0.2014.06.07
delphix system version> select 4.0.6.0 get osVersion
   4.0.2014.07.01
delphix system version> select 4.0.6.0 get minOsVersion
   4.0.2014.04.24

In this example, although 4.0.6.0 includes a newer version of DelphixOS than what is currently running, the currently running OS meets its minimum OS version requirement.

Once you have verified a deferred upgrade is possible to your uploaded image, you can choose to do a deferred upgrade, which is only supported in the CLI currently.  To do this, set the defer property to true in the apply context.

delphix system version> select 4.0.6.0
delphix system version ‘4.0.6.0’> apply
delphix system version ‘4.0.6.0’ apply *> set defer=true
delphix system version ‘4.0.6.0’ apply *> ls
Properties
   type: ApplyVersionParameters
   defer: true
   enableSourcesOnFailure: true
   ignoreQuiesceSourcesFailures: false
   quiesceSources: true
   reboot: true
   verify: true
delphix system version ‘4.0.6.0’ apply *>

Once in this state, run commit to start the deferred upgrade.

After performing a deferred DelphixOS upgrade, the OS version will still be installed, but the system OS will not reboot to that new version. Only the Delphix management software will restart to the new version, but this restart will not result in downtime for VDBs. After that point, the STATUS column of the running version will show DEFERRED instead of CURRENTLY_RUNNING. This indicates that although this version is running, the OS upgrade was deferred.

Later, you can update the OS to the current version by applying the running version again and not setting the defer property. When you do this, the system will reboot to the current version of DelphixOS. This will result in downtime for your VDBs.  Note that a system reboot without applying the running version again will not result in an OS update.

Contact Delphix support to determine whether a deferred OS upgrade is appropriate for your Delphix Engine. You should be aware of what changes are included in the new OS version before making this determination.


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