Infiniband Switch - Firmware Downgrade To 2.1.6 Fails With Error: Cannot proceed with downgrade on this SP.

Asset ID:	1-72-2187802.1
Update Date:	2017-01-08
Keywords:

Solution Type Problem Resolution Sure

Solution 2187802.1 : Infiniband Switch - Firmware Downgrade To 2.1.6 Fails With Error: Cannot proceed with downgrade on this SP.

Applies to:

Exalogic Elastic Cloud X4-2 Half Rack - Version X4 and later
Sun Datacenter InfiniBand Switch 36 - Version All Versions to All Versions [Release All Releases]
Sun Network QDR InfiniBand Gateway Switch - Version All Versions to All Versions [Release All Releases]
Oracle Exadata Hardware - Version 11.2.3.1.1 and later
Information in this document applies to any platform.

Symptoms

Cannot downgrade IB switch (NM2-36P or NM2-GW) firmware from v2.1.7-2 or newer to v2.1.6-2 or older.

You receive the following error in the /tmp/fw_upgrade_pre_check.err file:

Cannot proceed with downgrade on this SP.

Changes

Newer Hardware

Cause

Newer IB switch hardware requires a newer firmware-kernel that is only available in IB switch firmware v2.1.7-2 or newer.

Solution

The following Infiniband switches with these P/N's require IB switch firmware v2.1.7-2 or newer:

Datacenter InfiniBand Switch 36 P/N 7305544
&
QDR InfiniBand Gateway Switch P/N 7305550

NOTE - This is particularly important in the case of Oracle Engineered Systems, since customer needs to keep the IB Switch firmware revision in lockstep with their Engineered Systems PSU patch levels. For example only, with Exalogic, the IB Switch firmware 2.1.6 is used prior to their "April 2016 PSU" for Exalogic Infrastructure. For Exalogic, refer to <Document 1530781.1> Exalogic Infrastructure Physical and Virtual Releases/PSUs – Software and Firmware Version Information. Over time, as more customers upgrade their PSU to post-April-2016 versions, this will become less of an issue. For other Engineered System, refer to the relevant PSU for Infrastructure README/KB-articles.

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