[gpfsug-discuss] DSS-G support period

[Simon Thompson]

> it is recommended to update

Recommended. I said you don't *need* to. Of course YMMV and sure if you think you will have issues with support then don't do it.

In terms of LeSI levels, these are published on the Lenovo website (https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/solutions/HT510136). In fact we just deployed a new DSS-G system (3.0a) using our xCAT servers that are most definitely running CentOS7 (and not the Lenovo fork of xCAT). Of course we did validate the install process on some hardware, but that was mostly to test our automated integration and update processes.

LeSI is however a complicated thing ... and I recommend you speak to Lenovo support __ 

Simon

On 05/08/2020, 12:03, "gpfsug-discuss-bounces at spectrumscale.org on behalf of Jonathan Buzzard" <gpfsug-discuss-bounces at spectrumscale.org on behalf of jonathan.buzzard at strath.ac.uk> wrote:

    On 05/08/2020 11:32, Simon Thompson wrote:
    > 3.0 isn't supported on first gen DSS-G servers (x3650m5) so if you
    > have those, you'd hope that it would continue to be supported.

    Or it's now old hardware and out of support. Here I have some shinny new 
    storage to sell you :-)

    > 
    > We're just looking to upgrade ours to 3.0 (and no, you don't need to
    > upgrade xcat server to 8.0 for that).

    That's what the upgrade documents I am reading say. I have open a PDF 
    named DSS-G-3.0b.Upgrade_Procedure.pdf downloaded from Lenovo.

    If you navigate to section 2.4 on page 10 it says

         Since xCAT is required for DSS-G deployment, the xCAT server must be
         installed and the xCAT management software configured. For existing
         xCAT servers, it is recommended to update the OS and xCAT software
         to match the current LeSI levels; see section 2.3. The software
         components needed for DSS-G deployment must then be copied and
         unpacked onto the xCAT server.

    So it says to update the xCAT server OS and the xCAT server. Right lets 
    see what section 2.3 on page nine says about versions. It talks about 
    RHEL 8.1 and a very specific version of xCAT to be downloaded from 
    Lenovo. No mention of RHEL7 whatsoever.

    Consequently as I read it DSS-G 3.0 requires upgrading the xCAT server 
    OS to RHEL 8.1. Or at the very least is "recommended" which in my 
    experience translates to "argh sorry unsupported; click" should you need 
    to raise a support call. So not upgrading is in effect not optional.

    I would note that all previous upgrade documentation in the 2.x series 
    that I have read has said that the xCAT server OS should be upgraded to 
    match that of the OS you are about to deploy the the DSS-G servers. So 
    matching the xCAT OS to the DSS-G OS is not something new.

    Of course previously this was just a "yum update" so not really a big 
    deal. On the other hand switching to RHEL8 is a big deal :-(


    JAB.

    -- 
    Jonathan A. Buzzard                         Tel: +44141-5483420
    HPC System Administrator, ARCHIE-WeSt.
    University of Strathclyde, John Anderson Building, Glasgow. G4 0NG
    _______________________________________________
    gpfsug-discuss mailing list
    gpfsug-discuss at spectrumscale.org
    http://gpfsug.org/mailman/listinfo/gpfsug-discuss