Forum Discussion

Michael D'Angelo's avatar
Michael D'Angelo
Copper Contributor
Feb 06, 2018

In-place upgrade of cluster nodes?

With the new in-place upgrade feature, is it supported to in-place upgrade a failover cluster node or do we still need to use Cluster Rolling Upgrades?

  • If you do an in-place upgrade then just make sure everything you have running on the server is compatible, i.e antivirus software.

     

    I always prefer to do a wipe and full install myself just feels better to be on a clean slate.

     

    Oh and remember to finish the upgrade within 30 days. I have seen issues if you let it last longer then that.

     

    I have a nice step by step guide on my blog to perform a rolling cluster upgrade. you can view it here https://pixelrobots.co.uk/2017/06/step-by-step-guide-rolling-cluster-upgrade-from-2012-r2-to-2016/

     

    Hope it helps. If I can help any further let me know.

     

    Thanks

     

    Richard

     

     

  • If you do an in-place upgrade then just make sure everything you have running on the server is compatible, i.e antivirus software.

     

    I always prefer to do a wipe and full install myself just feels better to be on a clean slate.

     

    Oh and remember to finish the upgrade within 30 days. I have seen issues if you let it last longer then that.

     

    I have a nice step by step guide on my blog to perform a rolling cluster upgrade. you can view it here https://pixelrobots.co.uk/2017/06/step-by-step-guide-rolling-cluster-upgrade-from-2012-r2-to-2016/

     

    Hope it helps. If I can help any further let me know.

     

    Thanks

     

    Richard

     

     

  • You will upgrade your clusters in a rolling fashion, so it will be a Rolling Upgrade.  Now, how you upgrade the OS will have new flexibility, you could either do clean installs of the nodes or you could do an In-place Upgrade of the nodes.

     

    So yes, you could do a Rolling Upgrade of the cluster with In-place Upgrades of the OS's as you go.

    Thanks!
    Elden

    • Michael D'Angelo's avatar
      Michael D'Angelo
      Copper Contributor

      Just so I understand, would I have to evict the cluster node, do an in-place upgrade, and then re-join the node to the cluster?  Or can I just pause the cluster node, and do the in-place upgrade while the server is a member of the cluster?

       

      • Elden_Christensen's avatar
        Elden_Christensen
        Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft

        No need to evict, just pause and drain (Suspend-ClusterNode -drain) or stop the Cluster Service (Stop-ClusterNode) so there are no workloads being hosted on the node and then In-place Upgrade

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