Do 7mode DOT upgrades INCLUDE Motherboard BIOS updates?

[pvanlone]

I've seen conflicting info on this - Is there a way to get the BIOS updated in one pass?

if I upgrade from 8.1.3P1 to 8.2.3P2 - will the Motherboard BIOS be upgraded in the DOT upgrade process?

Or - do I need to go through a seperate process for Mboard BIOS updates? Is the BIOS update procedure - go through the DOT NDU first, get both nodes complete, then - do a BIOS update process, that includes another cycle of cf takeover, giveback, takeover, giveback?

[JGPSHNTAP]

It is included and once you do a takeover/giveback on each node, the MB Firmware gets updated... 

[pvanlone]

Thank you -

I have been told different things by a couple experienced engineer - and in at least one case after a DOT upgrade, it appeared to me that the MB BIOS was not updated during a DOT upgrade.

What would acccount for that - Is the MB BIOS only included in certain DOT updates - like if the particular upgrade requires a particular MB BIOS version, or something? Is there a way to check/be sure ahead of time whether an DOT upgrade will for sure include and perform the BIOS update?

Or - is all my nervousness just silly, and all DOT upgrades contain MB BIOS updates for all FAS units that can run that version of DOT?

[rwelshman]

In older upgrades, you had to manually upgrade the BIOS. However, with the new releases, it has become an automatic part of the entire upgrade. If you use the upgrade advisor tool on the now site, it would tell you if you needed to upgrade the BIOS yourself. As far as I'm aware, the DOT upgrade includes the recent release of the BIOS when that DOT was bundled and so it will upgrade to that version.

[pvanlone]

Thank you much - I opened an incident to try getting confirmation of all this - and what you say generally confirms to what the support tech said. 

I am curious - do you know of a way to confirm which BIOS is bundled into the particular DOT version that is being installed? I ask because in a "health check" report notes that there is a newer BIOS available for this particular unit, but the upgrade advisor does not.

I suppose we can assume that if upgrade advisor does not call it out, we don't need to do it? But then - why would the health check (which is some report run from the autosupport site, I'm told) flag it? So now the customer may think they "need" that version, when perhaps it is only needed if they have a particular bug?

[YIshikawa]

You can check bundled BIOS version in  BIOS Service Processor support matrix.

http://mysupport.netapp.com/NOW/download/tools/serviceimage/support/

By the way, you can update both Data ONTAP and BIOS at once by running "software install <BIOS>" and "download -d" immediately after running "software install <DOT>".
Bundled BIOS is installed into boot media by "software install <DOT>", then overwrite it with by "software install <BIOS>" & "download -d". BIOS will be updated by that in boot media when filer reboots.

[aborzenkov]

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By the way, you can update both Data ONTAP and BIOS at once by running "software install <BIOS>" and "download -d" immediately after running "software install <DOT>".

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I had problems doing it (download failed) so I would recommend doing it in two steps - first install and download Data ONTAP, then check installed BIOS version with "version -b" and install and download BIOS separately if newer version is available.

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Bundled BIOS is installed into boot media by "software install <DOT>".

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Not really. "software install" only upacks archive. You you need to run "download" to actually install it on boot media. May be you mean "software update"? It does both in one step.

[YIshikawa]

Thank you for correcting. I have confused with case of cDOT. As you wrote "software install" does not load BIOS into boot media. "download -d" does.