DataPower firmware upgrade procedure using WAMC

Today I was working on setting up a WAMC based methodology for firmware upgrade procedure for a cluster of DataPower appliances. Bellow are the results:

Running configuration consists from:

• 2 DataPower appliances (DP1 and DP2) in a production HA cluster.
• NLB in front of them with "first alive" routing algorithm, appliance DP1 is configured as primary and DP2 as secondary. Which means that all load is directed to DP1 while DP2 is used as standby in case DP1 will fail.
• WAMC managed set with DP1 as master and DP2 as simple member in a set.

The goal is to install new firmware on one of the appliances and only after successful tests install the firmware on other appliance. All this with no downtime. We will start with DP2 and then continue with DP2. Since DP2 is not primary appliance in NLB pharm, no requests will be sent to it.

1. In WAMC - change the managed set so DP2 will be master.
2. In WAMC - remove DP1 from managed set. This will cause WAMC to stop syncing DP1.
3. In WAMC - upload new firmware.
4. In WAMC - deploy new firmware to managed set. This will start firmware installation on DP2.
5. In WAMC - check the "tasks" for end of firmware upgrade.
6. Make all necessary tests to decide whether to continue with firmware upgrade or to rollback.
7. In case the test ended successfully tell NETWORK team to set DP2 as primary appliance in NLB pharm.
8. In WAMC - add DP1 to the managed set. Since DP2 is master, WAMC will automatically install new firmware on DP1.
9. In WAMC - wait till automated firmware propagation to DP1 ends.
10. Check DP1 for errors.
11. In WAMC - set DP1 back to be master in managed set.
12. Tell NETWORK team to set back DP1 as primary appliance in NLB pharm.

Enjoy.

DataPower management solution

IBM WebSphere DataPower SOA Appliances are purpose-built, easy-to-deploy network devices that simplify, help secure, and accelerate your XML/Web services and SOA deployments.

DataPower usage in high-availability scenarios is based on cluster of two or more DataPower appliances. In order for the cluster to work properly, the configurations across all DataPower appliances in cluster should be the identical. Manual synchronization of those configuration changes takes time and can cause outages and error because of human factor.

IBM WebSphere Appliance Management Center (hereafter, WAMC) manages appliance firmware and configurations across groups of WebSphere DataPower appliances and monitors key metrics and events from groups of WebSphere DataPower appliances. WAMC provides fast time to value with firmware deployment, domain and configuration services, and deployment policy management capabilities in order to meet the operational management and monitoring needs of WebSphere DataPower appliance environments. Management tasks in WAMC are performed via WebGUI application, while access control to different options in the WebGUI is based on role assigned to logged-in user account. 

WAMC allows managing different DataPower models in the same management group with different firmware version (v3.7.3 or later).

For more information regarding WebSphere DataPower visit our web site.