This document covers the procedure and the tools for applying major upgrade across the range of Sentinel products.

General information

A major upgrade of a Sentinel product is when a customer wants a new product where the version differs on the first, second or third component: for example VoLTE 2.7.0.4 to 2.7.1.1 or 2.7.1.1 to 2.8.0.2

Backwards compatibility between major versions is not guaranteed. The new version might introduce new features, new configuration, configuration changes, new modules or even architectural changes. Therefore the major upgrade process is more complex than a minor upgrade.

The products supported by major upgrade are:

  • Sentinel VoLTE

  • Sentinel IP-SM-GW

  • Sentinel GAA

  • Rhino Element Manager (REM)

  • Rhino

On how to major upgrade Sentinel products see Major Upgrade Sentinel Product.

On how to upgrade REM see Upgrade Rhino Element Manager

Requirements for a major upgrade

To be able to apply a major upgrade for Sentinel successfully verify the checklist below:

read the upgrade documentation and the product change log

The upgrade documentation contains the instructions on how to apply the upgrade. The product changelog contains the changes from the previous versions and indicates new features and configuration changes. It is important to be aware of those changes because new features will need configuration, which is not always captured during the upgrade. Also there might be changes in the product behavior that might affect the current session flows.

check connectivity

Check the connectivity between the management node and the Rhino nodes. From the management node you must be able to open an SSH connection to each Rhino node without specifying a password.

check the upgrade bundle

The upgrade bundle for a Sentinel product consists of:

Item Description

README

Contains information about the major upgrade: how to use it, what components it changes, and what problems it fixes

orca

The orca tool

helpers directory

Contains the set of scripts used by orca

core directory

Contains the set of scripts used by orca

workflows directory

Contains the set of scripts used by orca

resources directory

Contains the properties used by orca

licenses directory

License information for third party libraries used by the patch runner

packages directory

Contains the package files and the packages.cfg

transformation-rules

Contains the transformation rules jar

required-installer-properties

Contains the required SDK properties

The package files directory contains:

  • the packages.cfg file

  • the SDK in offline mode

  • the post install package or custom package (optional)

  • the post configure package (optional)

  • the rhino installer (optional)

  • the rhino-config.json with the required Rhino properties when a new Rhino is required

  • the Java JDK (optional)

The packages path must contain at least the product SDK with an offline repository and the product installer.

See Creating a major upgrade bundle for more information.

check the path structure

For Sentinel products, the requirements are that the Rhino nodes have the expected path structure:

See Standardized path structure.

enable symmetric activation state mode

Symmetric activation state mode must be enabled prior to starting the upgrade. To check that it is enabled, use orca's status command. At the top under the Global info header there will be the text Symmetric activation state mode is currently enabled if it is enabled, or Nodes with per-node activation state: <node list> if it is disabled. Alternatively you can use the rhino-console command getsymmetricactivationstatemode.

To enable it, follow the instructions in the Rhino documentation.

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