Overview of Smart Upgrade

Definition

As the number of switches on a network drastically increases year by year, the traditional upgrade operations become rather complicated and laborious, resulting in higher maintenance costs. To upgrade a switch to the latest software version in a more convenient way, smart upgrade is developed to implement one-click upgrade.

Smart upgrade achieves one-click loading of and upgrade to the latest version of software by connecting switches to the Huawei Online Upgrade Platform (HOUP) through the Internet.

A smart upgrade-enabled switch periodically sends its information including the device name, ESN, current system software version, and current patch to the HOUP. The HOUP returns the latest version information, including the recommended system software version, patch, patch type, download path, and file size, to the switch based on the maintenance policy. After the customer confirms to upgrade the switch immediately, the switch automatically downloads the software package and performs an upgrade. After the upgrade is completed, the switch reports the upgrade result to the HOUP.

System files to be downloaded by a smart upgrade-enabled switch depend on the maintenance policy customized on the HOUP and do not need to be manually specified.

Deployment Mode

Figure 1 shows the networking where switches can access the extranet for deployment of smart upgrade. Figure 2 shows the networking where switches reside on the intranet and a proxy server to enable the switches to access the extranet for deployment of smart upgrade.

Figure 1 Networking diagram of deploying smart upgrade on an extranet switch

Figure 2 Networking diagram of deploying smart upgrade on an intranet switch

Implementation

Figure 3 shows the exchange process between the HOUP and switches to implement one-click smart upgrade.

Figure 3 Exchange process of smart upgrade

The process is as follows:

Before an upgrade

Once smart upgrade is enabled on a switch, the switch begins to automatically report its status information to the HOUP every 24 hours to request for the latest upgrade details.
The HOUP returns upgrade details including the latest system software version and patch to the switch based on the customized maintenance policy.
The administrator determines whether to perform an upgrade based on the returned upgrade details. You can view upgrade prompts on the web page and determine whether an upgrade is required using the CLI.
The administrator can click Upgrade Immediately on the web page or run the smart-upgrade right-now command on the CLI to trigger an upgrade in one-click mode.

During an upgrade

The switch requests to download the latest system files from the HOUP.
The HOUP transfers system files to the switch using HTTPS based on the download request.
After the system files are downloaded, the switch automatically sets the system software or patch for next startup, and restarts for the upgrade. (If only hot patches are loaded, the switch does not automatically restart.)

After an upgrade

After the switch restarts, it automatically reports the upgrade results to the HOUP. If the upgrade fails, the HOUP notifies Huawei maintenance engineers of the failure.