Upgrading High Availability and Cluster Support

Upgrade the cluster subsystem.

Adaptive Server 15.7 SP100 supports these cluster platforms for high availability:

HP-UX – MCSG 11.17
HPIA – MCSG 11.18
IBM AIX – HACMP 5.4
Sun Solaris – VCS4.0, SunCluster 3.2
Linux-AMD – VCS4.1
Win2003 – Cluster Manager 5.2

There are two ways to upgrade a cluster subsystem:

Perform a major upgrade, which involves cluster downtime, then shut down and restart all servers. You must:
1. Run sp_companion suspend, as described in Using Sybase Failover in a High Availability System.
2. Take offline the resource groups of primary and secondary companions on both nodes. Ensure that the companion server and corresponding resource groups are not automatically brought online until the cluster system upgrade is complete.
3. Upgrade the cluster subsystem following the instructions from the cluster system vendor. You may find options to migrate the current resource groups to the new cluster version. If such an option is not available (or if the resource groups get deleted or corrupted), re-create the resource groups and configure them appropriately after you have upgraded the cluster system.
4. Bring the resource groups online. This should bring primary and secondary companions online on their respective nodes.
5. Run sp_companion resume as described in Using Sybase Failover in a High Availability System.
To avoid cluster downtime, perform a minor upgrade. Nodes are failed over to other nodes and upgraded one at a time. For example, assuming ASE1 is the primary companion on node N1, and ASE2 is secondary companion running on node N2:
1. Upgrade the primary companion:
  1. Relocate the primary resource group to N2 or shut down ASE1. This causes ASE1 to fail over from N1 to N2.
  2. Upgrade the cluster subsystem on N1 following the upgrade instructions provided by the vendor.
  3. Fail back ASE1 from N2 to N1. See the appropriate cluster chapter in Using Sybase Failover in a High Availability System for more details on Adaptive Server failback.
2. Upgrade the secondary companion. If you are using a symmetric configuration, follow the steps in "upgrade the primary companion," above, for ASE2.
  If you are using an asymmetric configuration:
  1. Take the secondary resource group offline and verify ASE2 is shut down. ASE2 is unavailable during this upgrade.
  2. Upgrade the cluster subsystem on N2 following the upgrade instructions from the vendor.
  3. Start ASE2 by bringing the secondary resource group online to N2.