What significant improvements I can see after upgrading the gateway?
After upgrading the gateway, customers can benefit from a wide range of improvements that enhance security, performance, reliability, and long-term maintainability:
- Continued compatibility with SaaS upgrades, ensuring seamless integration with the latest platform updates without disruption.
- Enhanced security, including critical security patches and vulnerability fixes that help protect the system from emerging threats
- Application bug fixes, addressing known issues to improve reliability and reduce operational interruptions.
- Application performance improvements, resulting in better responsiveness, stability, and resource utilization.
- New features and enhancements, providing additional capabilities and improved user experience.
- Improved monitoring capabilities, with more in-depth monitoring templates available for better visibility into system health and performance.
Overall, upgrading the gateway ensures your environment remains secure, up to date, and aligned with the latest SaaS and application advancements.
For additional details, refer to the gateway release documentation for version-specific updates.
What if the upgrade is not successful?
The platform undergoes end-to-end testing to ensure gateway upgrades are reliable. However, if a gateway upgrade is not successful, the failure is typically due to environmental, network, infrastructure, or configuration-related issues, rather than the upgrade process itself.
In such cases, to resolve the issue, verify respective troubleshooting documentation or reach out to OpsRamp support team.
The support team will assist in troubleshooting, identifying the root cause, and guiding you through the necessary steps to successfully complete the upgrade.
What are the steps involved in upgrading the gateway?
The gateway upgrade process is designed to be simple and minimally disruptive. The typical steps involved are as follows:
- Download of the latest firmware
The gateway securely downloads the latest firmware package from the OpsRamp SaaS. The firmware includes application components, libraries, OS packages, and related dependencies. - Installation of the firmware
Once the download is complete, the gateway installs the firmware. During the installation process, monitoring is temporarily paused for a few minutes, and the gateway tunnel is disconnected. - Reconnection and recovery
After the installation is completed, the gateway reconnects the tunnel to OpsRamp SaaS, resumes monitoring, and begins operating on the updated version.
Overall, the gateway upgrade typically completes within a few minutes, depending on the environment, network conditions, and system resources.
Which disruptions are possible during the upgrade process?
During the gateway upgrade process, temporary and minimal disruptions may occur. These can include:
- Brief interruption in monitoring and data collection while the gateway is being updated.
- Temporary disconnection and reconnection of the gateway tunnel as part of the upgrade process.
- Short delays in data reporting immediately after the upgrade, until the gateway fully reconnects and resumes normal operation.
These disruptions typically last only a few minutes and resolve automatically once the upgrade is completed. If the gateway fails to reconnect to the cloud or experiences issues establishing the tunnel after the upgrade, contact OpsRamp Support for assistance. The support team will help diagnose connectivity, network, or environmental issues and ensure the gateway is restored to normal operation.
How long is each gateway down during an upgrade from start to finish?
A gateway upgrade is performed in two phases: firmware download and firmware upgrade. The overall impact is minimal, with only a short downtime during the upgrade phase.
Phase 1: Firmware download
- Each gateway securely downloads the latest firmware package from the OpsRamp SaaS.
- The gateway continues to operate normally during this phase, and monitoring is not impacted.
- Download time depends on available network bandwidth.
- Firmware packages are typically a few megabytes in size, so downloads usually complete quickly.
Phase 2: Firmware upgrade
- In this phase, the downloaded firmware is applied/installed to the gateway.
- The upgrade process typically takes around few minutes to complete.
- During this short interval, the gateway temporarily shuts down, and device monitoring is paused.
- Once the upgrade is completed, the gateway automatically restarts and resumes normal operations.
Overall impact
From start to finish, the gateway upgrade process causes only a few minutes of downtime (in general below 10 minutes), limited to the firmware upgrade phase. Normal monitoring and connectivity are automatically restored once the gateway comes back online.
While a gateway is being upgraded, which type of alerts are seen in the alert browser?
During the gateway firmware upgrade process, the OpsRamp SaaS temporarily detects that the gateway is unavailable. As a result, an alert with the subject Gateway is offline is generated in the alert browser.
This alert is expected behavior during an upgrade and is temporary. Once the firmware upgrade is completed and the gateway comes back online, the alert automatically heals/clears without requiring any manual intervention.
No additional action is required unless the gateway does not return to an online state within the expected upgrade window. In such cases, contact OpsRamp Support for further assistance.
Which network ports are required for the gateway
Refer to the Network Requirements section for network ports information.
Can I install or update the software/packages on the gateway?
No, you should not install, update, or remove any software or packages on the gateway. Making such changes can lead to gateway malfunction, performance issues, or unexpected behavior. Additionally:
- Gateway configurations must not be modified outside of officially supported methods.
- OpsRamp cannot be held responsible for any issues or failures caused by manual changes to software, packages, or configurations.
- All software updates and package changes should be performed only through official gateway upgrade processes provided by OpsRamp.
Following this policy ensures that the gateway remains secure, stable, and fully supported while maintaining compatibility with SaaS updates and monitoring features.