Brocade Fabric OS Encryption Administrator's Guide v7.1.0 (53-1002721-01, March 2013)

Table Of Contents
Fabric OS Encryption Administrator’s Guide (SKM/ESKM) 285
53-1002721-01
Firmware upgrade and downgrade considerations
5
When doing a firmware upgrade to Fabric OS 7.0.0 or downgrade from Fabric OS 7.0.0, the
message SPM-1016 will be observed on v7.0.0 nodes in the encryption group (EG) when other
nodes in that EG that are still running versions earlier than Fabric OS 7.0.0. Although this is a
warning message, it is transient and is only observed during a firmware upgrade or downgrade
operation. The message can be ignored.
Fabric OS 6.2.0 supports only one HP SKM/ESKM key vault. Registering a second HP
SKM/ESKM key vault will be blocked.
Fabric OS 6.2.0 uses brcduser1 as a standard user name when creating a Brocade group on
SKM/ESKM. If you downgrade from Fabric OS 6.3.0 or later to v6.2.0, the user name is
overwritten to brcduser1, and the Brocade group user name must be changed to brcduser1.
You cannot downgrade to a Fabric OS version prior to v6.2.0.
General guidelines
General guidelines for a firmware upgrade of encryption switches and a DCX Backbone chassis
with encryption blades in encryption groups, HA clusters, and DEK clusters are as follows:
Upgrade one node at time.
Do not perform a firmware upgrade when rekey operations and first-time encryption operations
are underway.
Do not start any manual rekey operations and first-time encryption operations during the
firmware upgrade process for all nodes in the HA/DEK cluster.
Guidelines for firmware upgrade of encryption switches and a DCX Backbone chassis with
encryption blades deployed in a DEK cluster with two HA clusters:
Upgrade nodes in one HA cluster at a time.
Within an HA cluster, upgrade one node at a time.
Guidelines for firmware upgrade of encryption switches and a DCX Backbone chassis with
encryption blades deployed in DEK cluster with No HA cluster (each node hosting one path).
- Upgrade one node at a time.
- In the case of active/passive arrays, upgrade the node which is hosting the passive path
first. Upgrade the node which is hosting active path next. The Host MPIO ensures that I/O
fails over and fails back from active to passive and back to active during this firmware
upgrade process.
- In the case of active/active arrays, upgrade order of nodes does not matter, but you still
must upgrade one node at a time. The Host MPIO ensures that I/O fails over and fails back
from one active path to another active path during this firmware upgrade process.
All nodes in an encryption group must be at the same firmware level before starting a rekey or
first-time encryption operation.
A firmware consistency check for Fabric OS 6.4.0(x) and later is enforced in an encryption group if
any of the v6.4.0(x) features is enabled, for example, disk tape coexistence. If any Fabric OS
6.4.0(x) feature is in an enabled state, then any firmware download to Fabric OS 6.3.x or earlier is
blocked.