Planning your DataStax Enterprise upgrade
Minimize downtime and interim upgrade requirements.
Repair service
Repairing nodes can be done with the OpsCenter Repair service or nodetool repair.| OpsCenter Repair service | nodetool repair |
|---|---|
| 6.5 | DSE 6.0 |
| 6.1 | DSE 5.1 |
| 6.0 | Cassandra 3.0 |
| 5.2 | Cassandra 2.1 |
| 5.1 | Cassandra 2.1 |
| 5.0 | Cassandra 2.0 |
The upgrade process for DataStax Enterprise provides minimal downtime (ideally zero). During this process, upgrade and restart one node at a time while other nodes continue to operate online. With a few exceptions, the cluster continues to work as though it were on the earlier version of DataStax Enterprise until all of the nodes in the cluster are upgraded.
Factors to consider when planning an upgrade:
- Reduce risks
- You can reduce risks and effort by employing a continual upgrade strategy. Ensure that you repair your nodes regularly. Node repair ensures that data on a replica is consistent with data on other nodes.
- Upgrade to the latest patch release on your current version
-
When upgrading to a major version, first upgrade to the latest patch release on your current version. Fixes included in the latest patch release might help or smooth the upgrade process.
The latest DataStax Enterprise versions are:- DSE 6.0.4
- DSE 5.1.11
- DSE 5.0.14
- DSE 4.8.16
- Backup data
- DataStax recommends backing up your data prior to any version upgrade, including logs and custom configurations. A backup provides the ability to revert and restore all the data used in the previous version if necessary. OpsCenter provides a Backup service that manages enterprise-wide backup and restore operations for DataStax Enterprise clusters.
- Upgrade order
- Upgrade order matters. Upgrade nodes in this order:
- In multiple datacenter clusters, upgrade every node in one datacenter before moving on to another datacenter.
- Upgrade the seed nodes within a datacenter first.
- Upgrade node types in this order:
- DSE Analytics nodes or datacenters.
For DSE Analytics nodes using DSE Hadoop, upgrade the Job Tracker node first. Then upgrade Hadoop nodes, followed by Spark nodes.
- Transactional/DSE Graph nodes or datacenters
- DSE Search nodes or datacenters
- DSE Analytics nodes or datacenters.
- Version impacts
- Upgrades are impacted by the version you are upgrading from and the version you are
upgrading to. The greater the gap between the current version and the target version, the
more complex the upgrade. Note: Be sure to check driver compatibility. Depending on the driver version, you might need to recompile your client application code. See Upgrading DataStax drivers.