To minimize the impact of Grid upgrades on your system operations, you can organize members into upgrade groups and schedule their software distributions. This is useful, for example, in a large Grid spanning multiple time zones where there are fluctuating network and downtime considerations at various locations. Note that you can also schedule their upgrades, depending on the existing releases and their upgrade paths. For information about the different upgrade methods, see Lite Upgrades and Full Upgrades
You can also import and export upgrade groups and their schedules in CSV format. For more information, see Infoblox CSV Import Reference.
Infoblox provides two default upgrade groups:

• Grid Master: After you configure the Grid Master, it automatically becomes the only member of this group. You cannot modify or delete this group.

• Reporting Member: After you configure a reporting member in a Grid, it automatically becomes the only member of this group. This group will be upgraded automatically after the Grid Master and before other upgrade groups. You cannot modify, delete, or schedule this upgrade group. For information about reporting, see Infoblox Reporting and Analytics.

• Reporting Member (when you have configured reporting clustering Grid): When you upgrade from NIOS 7.3.200 to a later release, the Grid will be upgraded to the single indexer mode. You can change the configuration after the upgrade. During an upgrade, the reporting members of the primary site are moved into separate groups to ensure that there are always some peers available to receive events sent by the forwarders. To achieve this, the replication factor must be equal to the search factor and the total number of reporting appliances.

  During an upgrade, data loss might happen if the peers that hold all searchable copies of a bucket are in the same group and they are all offline at the same time. To avoid this, ensure that you group the members in separate groups.

• Default: This is the default upgrade group to which the appliance automatically assigns Grid members. If you do not explicitly assign a member to an upgrade group, it remains in the Default group. You cannot delete or rename this group.

  Make sure that the default group has at least one member associated with it, otherwise the appliance displays that the upgrade process is still in progress even though it is complete. To avoid this, you can either use the Infoblox > set grid_upgrade forced_end command to stop the upgrade process or keep at least one member in the default group.

Grid Manager provides information about the upgrade group to which a member belongs. You can add or delete an upgrade group and monitor the software version that is currently running on the Grid and on individual member. You can do the following:

• Add an upgrade group, as described in Adding Upgrade Groups below.

• Modify an upgrade group, as described in Modifying Upgrade Groups below.

• View upgrade group information, as described in Viewing Upgrade Groups below.

• Delete an upgrade group, as described in Deleting Upgrade Groups below.

Adding Upgrade Groups

When you create an upgrade group, you select the Grid members for that group, and specify whether the software distribution and upgrade occur on all group members at the same time, or successively in the order they are listed in the group members list. A Grid member can belong to only one upgrade group.

Note the following recommendations when you create an upgrade group:

• Put the following members in the first upgrade group after the Grid Master upgrade: all Grid Master candidates, DNS primaries, and the DHCP logging member.

• To minimize the risk of a loss in DNS services, put the name servers for a zone in different upgrade groups, and assign the primary and secondary servers to separate upgrade groups.

To add an upgrade group:

1. From the Grid tab, select the Upgrade tab.

2. Click Toggle Group List View to display the list of upgrade groups, and then click the Add icon.

3. In the Add Upgrade Group wizard, complete the following:

   • Name: Enter a name for the upgrade group. The name can contain alphanumeric characters, spaces, underscores, hyphens, and dashes.

   • Distribute to Members: Select one of the following to specify how the Grid Master distributes software to the members in the group.

     • Simultaneously: Select this to distribute software upgrade files to all group members at the same time.

     • Sequentially: Select this to distribute software upgrade files to group members in the order they are listed in the group members list.

   • Upgrade Members: Select one of the following to specify how the group members upgrade to the new software version.

     • Simultaneously: Select this to upgrade all group members at the same time.

     • Sequentially: Select this to upgrade group members in the order they are listed in the group members list.

   • Comment: Enter useful information about the upgrade group, such as the location of the group.

4. Click Next to select members for the group. Complete the following:

   • Click the Add icon. Grid Manager adds a row to the Member Assignment table.

   • Click Select. In the Member Selector dialog box, select the members you want to add to the group, and then click the Select icon. Use Shift+click and Ctrl+click to select multiple members. Note that if you choose to distribute and upgrade members sequentially, the distribution and upgrade occur in the order the members are listed. You can reorder the list by dragging a member to a desired location or by selecting a member and using the up and down arrows next to the checkbox to place the member at a desired location. You can also delete a member from the list.

     After you add a member, the appliance adds it to the group members list. The first Grid member in the list determines the time zone of the group when you schedule the distribution and upgrade. Therefore, Grid Manager displays the time zone of the first Grid member in the list. (For information about setting time zones, see Managing Time Settings.)

5. Save the configuration and click Restart if it appears at the top of the screen.

Modifying Upgrade Groups

You can modify an existing upgrade group to change the group name or how the distribution and upgrade are performed. You can also add and delete members.
To modify an upgrade group:

1. From the Grid tab, select the Upgrade tab, and then click Toggle Group List View.

2. Select an upgrade_group checkbox, and then click the Edit icon in the row. You can also click the Edit icon directly without selecting the checkbox.

3. The Upgrade Group editor provides the following tabs from which you can modify data:

   • General: Modify the fields as described in Adding Upgrade Groups.

   • Member Assignment: Add or delete members as described in Adding Upgrade Groups.

4. Save the configuration and click Restart if it appears at the top of the screen.

Viewing Upgrade Groups

In the Upgrade tab, Grid Manager lists the Grid Master group, the Default group, and other upgrade groups you have configured. You cannot modify or delete the Grid Master group. You can modify the Default group, but you cannot delete it. To view the members in a specific upgrade group, click the arrow next to the group name to expand the group. All groups are collapsed by default.
Before a distribution or upgrade starts, you can move members from one group to another, reorder the members, or remove a member from an upgrade group. The member you remove automatically joins the Default group. (For information, see Managing Distributions, in Upgrading NIOS Software.) You cannot add, delete, or reorder members in an upgrade group while a distribution or upgrade is in progress. You can skip a member in an upgrade group from a distribution only before the distribution starts, or after you pause it. For information, see Pausing and Resuming Distributions in Upgrading NIOS Software.
To view the upgrade groups in a Grid:

1. From the Grid tab, select the Upgrade tab, and then click Toggle Group List View.
   Grid Manager displays the Grid Master at the top of the list. All other upgrade groups are listed alphabetically after the Grid Master. You can click the arrow next to a group to view members in the group.

2. Grid Manager displays the following:

   • Group: The name of an upgrade group to which the member belongs.

   • Member: The name of the member.

   • Status: Displays the overall status of an upgrade group at the group level and individual status for each member when you expand the upgrade group. At the group level, this displays the most severe status among the members. For example, when there are three out of five members are offline, the overall status shows 3 of 5 members in red, which means offline.

   • IP Address: The IP address of the member.

   • Running Version: The NIOS software version that is currently running on the member.

   • Distribution Status: The distribution status of the group.

   • Timestamp: The date, time, and time zone when a distribution or upgrade is complete.

You can hide some of the default columns, but you cannot sort the information in this table. You can use filters and the Go to function to narrow down the list. With the autocomplete feature, you can just enter the first few characters of an object name in the Go to field and select the object from the possible matches. You can also create a quick filter to save frequently used filter criteria. For information, see Using Quick Filters, in Finding and Restoring Data.

Deleting Upgrade Groups

When you delete an upgrade group, members in the upgrade group that you want to delete will be moved to the Default group. Grid Manager displays a warning before deleting an upgrade group.
To delete an upgrade group:

1. From the Grid tab, select the Upgrade tab, and then click Toggle Group List View.

2. Select an upgrade-group checkbox, and then click the Delete icon.

3. In the Delete Confirmation dialog box, click Yes.