Installing new firmware

You upgrade the IBM® MQ Appliance by downloading a new version of the firmware and installing it.

You download the new firmware image from the IBM Fix Central website, and then copy the image to the appliance. You then reboot the appliance, and use the new image.

You can use this process to upgrade to a new level of firmware, or to downgrade to a specific, earlier version of the firmware.

The firmware that you install must be in support. Firmware remains in support for approximately three years. See https://www.ibm.com/support/lifecycle/search?q=mq%20appliance for firmware support details for the appliance.

If the appliance that you are upgrading is part of an HA or DR configuration, follow the guidance in Upgrading a version 9.2 HA configuration, Upgrading a version 9.2 DR configuration, and Upgrading a version 9.2 HA configuration with DR. (If you are upgrading between releases, see the release-specific topics for upgrading HA and DR configurations, as extra steps are required.)

You can use the back up and restore capabilities to provide a recovery or rollback capability for your queue managers during the installation process. You can take an archive of your queue managers and data before you start your queue managers in the new environment. If you need to roll data back to the pre-upgrade state, the queue manager data can be restored from the archive file, and the appliance firmware rolled back to the last version. This use of archive files is useful for stand-alone (non-HA/DR) queue managers where you want to ensure that you have a backout strategy during migration. See Backing up a queue manager for instructions on backing up and restoring.

You can install the new firmware either by using the IBM MQ Appliance web UI or by using the command line.

Use a computer with web access to download the required image from IBM Fix Central. This website is a repository for all available and supported firmware images for IBM MQ Appliances. The fixes are cumulative, so always choose the most recent image.