Upgrading firmware or hardware

You upgrade your appliance by upgrading the firmware. You might also want to upgrade appliance hardware, for example moving from an M2001 or M2002 appliance to an M2003 appliance.

There are various pathways through upgrading firmware, depending on whether you are upgrading standalone, high availability, or disaster recovery systems, and whether you are upgrading to a new major version (for example, from IBM® MQ 9.2 to IBM MQ 9.3).

To upgrade from an M2001 or M2002 appliance to an M2003 appliance, you must use the back up and restore method.

The firmware that you install must be in support. Appliance long term service (LTS) firmware remains in support for at least three years, and upgrades are required to remain in support. Appliance continuous delivery (CD) remains in support for one year, or for so long as it is one of the two most recent releases (whichever is longer). Note that the lifecycle is different to that for IBM MQ software and for the appliance hardware. For more information about LTS and CD releases, see IBM MQ FAQ for Long Term Support and Continuous Delivery releases, for more information about lifecycles see IBM Appliance Support Guide, MQ Appliance firmware lifecycle, and MQ Appliance hardware lifecycle.