Performing a rolling upgrade from NetWare 6 to NetWare 6.5 lets you keep your cluster up and running and lets your users continue to access the network while the upgrade is being performed.
During a rolling cluster upgrade, one server is upgraded to NetWare 6.5 while the other servers in the cluster continue running NetWare 6. Then another server is upgraded to NetWare 6.5, and then another, until all servers in the cluster have been upgraded to NetWare 6.5.
When the last server in the cluster has been upgraded (all the servers in the cluster are running NetWare 6.5) each cluster-enabled pool resource (or any resource on shared storage) is temporarily put into a new resource state called upgrade, and the following process occurs automatically:
All cluster resources on shared pools are temporarily brought offline.
Media Manager software is called to upgrade disk media on one server. Disk media is then refreshed on all remaining servers in the cluster.
All cluster resources on shared storage are moved back to their original nodes.
The load scripts for each cluster resource run and each cluster resource is brought online.
The amount of time users lose access to cluster resources is minimal because the process described above happens very quickly.
To perform a rolling cluster upgrade from NetWare 6 to NetWare 6.5
Install NetWare 6.5 Cluster Server Licenses on your NetWare 6 cluster servers using iManager prior to upgrading them to NetWare 6.5.
Since licenses for a two-node cluster are included with NetWare 6 and with NetWare 6.5, this is only necessary if you are upgrading a three-node or larger cluster. Additional Cluster Server Licenses can be obtained from Novell or from your Novell Authorized Reseller.
Upgrade one NetWare 6 server in the cluster to NetWare 6.5 by following the instructions in Upgrading to NetWare 6.5 SP6
in the NW65 SP8: Installation Guide.
The latest Cluster Services files are automatically copied to the server during the upgrade process. When the server reboots after being upgraded, new Cluster Services software will automatically load.
Cluster pools, volumes, and resources fail over from the server being upgraded to other servers in the cluster. After a cluster server is upgraded and brought back online, the pools, volumes, and resources that failed over to other servers during the upgrade process fail back to the upgraded server.
Upgrade another server in the cluster to NetWare 6.5, and continue this process until all servers in the cluster have been upgraded to NetWare 6.5
After a cluster server has been upgraded, you do not need to immediately upgrade another cluster server. The rolling upgrade process allows both NetWare 6 and NetWare 6.5 cluster servers to coexist in the same cluster.