Templated network - Upgrade all networks at same time

[ksumann]

Hi everyone,

is it possible to do a firmware upgrade for templated networks at the same time (all networks are in the same timezone)?

During the last upgrade a noted a gap of 2 minutes between each network.

[Marvin_]

Hi ksumann,

I had the same issue with a large organization.

As a workaround I have rescheduled all the scheduled networks firmware upgrades on a specific time via API.

So you can upgrade your networks on the minute precise.

Edit:

We are using this API call to reschedule the firmware upgrade in every network:

https://developer.cisco.com/meraki/api-v1/update-network-firmware-upgrades/

[JGill]

Marvin,  Curious if you updated just the time field via the API, or all the elements?

i.e. for Networks scheduled for an upgrade, just modifying the time field for the nextUpgrade for a specific product? 

i.e. 

response = dashboard.networks.updateNetworkFirmwareUpgrades(

    network_id,

    products={'appliance': {'nextUpgrade': {'time': '2024-09-09T03:10:00Z'}}}

)

[ksumann]

Sadly i have not devices to test right now so i need to ask:

There is a difference between doing to upgrade by clicking "update know" and schedule an upgrade within the dashboard and schedule an upgrade via api?

So you say you did it via API and all of you MX started at the same time and were finished around 10 minutes later?

[Marvin_ · Accepted solution]

Update now means that the device will perform the update in the next five minutes.
With "schedule an upgrade" you can plan the upgrade up to 30 days in the future.

As far as I know, there is technically no difference between scheduling it via API and Dashboard.
The only difference is, that you can schedule it via API precisely on the minute. With the dashboard, it will schedule all templated networks over a window of multiple hours, depending on the count of networks inside the template.

What we did was:
Step 1 Scheduled the firmware update for the template 29 days in the future via Dashboard
Step 2 Rescheduled every single network of the template to a specific time

Yes, at least all networks started the upgrade in a window of 10 minutes.
But to be safe you should define a maintenance window of around 30 to 60 minutes, as in my experience some devices take a lot longer than 10 minutes to upgrade.