Dell PowerStore T and PowerStore Q Software Upgrade Guide

General upgrade considerations

Before preparing for an upgrade, review the following considerations:

• Performing a non-disruptive upgrade (NDU) on a PowerStore cluster does not stop I/O. The I/O requirements of the PowerStore cluster are met by a single node on each appliance in the cluster. The NDU process ensures that only one node of the cluster is taken offline at any given time. Taking a node offline does not cause host I/O disruptions when the hosts have redundant data access paths present, and the best practices are configured for the host operating system.
• During the NDU, you cannot perform configuration changes or management operations on the PowerStore cluster.
• When the PowerStoreOS is upgraded and the PowerStore VASA provider is offline, the I/O and availability of the vVol-based VMs served from the PowerStore cluster are not impacted. However, management operations such as creating VMs, rebooting VMs, migrating VMs to other ESXi hosts, and taking VM snapshots cannot be performed on vVol-based VMs while the VASA provider is offline.
• Review the host connectivity recommendations in the E-Lab Host Connectivity Guides.
• Check the PowerStore Simple Support Matrix to ensure your host HBA driver and firmware are supported.
• PowerStore NDU is supported with Solaris native MPxIO starting at Solaris 11.4 SRU 35. Contact your service provider for PowerStore NDU support on earlier Solaris versions or Solaris updates.
• When the PowerStoreOS upgrade is complete, wait five to ten minutes for the status of the PowerStore VASA provider to change to Online in vCenter Server before creating storage containers or performing management operations on vVol-based VMs.