Cisco Meraki firmware upgrades allow network administrators to utilize the latest features and security enhancements on Meraki devices. With MS Switches, you have an option to configure Staged Upgrade. Staged upgrade is only available for switches within the same network.

How to upgrade the firmware

On the left column click on Organization, then click on firmware upgrades.

This will bring you to the Firmware Upgrades Page on the Overview Tab. On this page, you will find the firmware status and the latest firmware version. Picture below shows that info. Firmware status is indicated with the black arrow. The latest firmware version is shown with the red arrow. I recommend using the Stable firmware version instead of the Beta version.

To do an upgrade, you’ll need to schedule an upgrade. Click on the Schedule upgrades Tab. Here you can see the firmware status and the availability. Shown below with red arrows. As you can see some switches are in Critical status with an upgrade available. You can use the filters on top to filter down your list of devices. As shown, I chose Device type for Switch.

Select the device or devices that you want to upgrade. Then click schedule upgrades.

Next screen will give you an option to choose your firmware version. I recommend using the latest Stable version. Click next to continue.

Next screen will give you an option to start the upgrade now or to schedule it. You can only schedule the upgrade to 30 days in advance. Click next.

A summary page for your schedule upgrade. Review it and click on Schedule change button.

You can review your schedule upgrades by going to the Schedule changes tab. You can cancel or reschedule if needed. Shown with red arrows.

You can upgrade any Meraki devices the same way. But there are more options with MS Switches.

With MS Switches, you have an option to configure Staged Upgrade. Staged upgrade is only available for switches within the same network. Typically used if there are too many switches on the network to upgrade in a small maintenance window. A good example is with 60 switches total in 1 MDF and 20 IDFs. Can you image upgrading 60 switches at one time and hoping every switch comes back online? Not including how these switches are connected to each other. Scary though.

With Staged upgrades, you have the option to create Groups and upgrade sequences. In the example above, I would create a group for each IDFs and create a sequence to upgrade all the IDFs before the MDF. You can schedule each sequence per date or time.

On the left column click on Organization, then click on Staged upgrades.

Next screen will show your groups. Meraki has a default group with all the switches.

Click Create Group. Give it a name. Select the switches and click add to group. Click Save changes.

Shown below. I’ve created 2 groups. LAN switch group and Internet Switch group.

Click on the Sequence tab and click on edit to change your sequence. Click on update.

Follow the same steps in scheduling a upgrade and choose Schedule staged upgrade. Click next twice.

Check if you have your groups configured. Create Group if needed. Click Next.

Check if the sequence is correct. Change if needed. Click Next.

Schedule your date and time for each sequence.

Review settings and click on next.

Things to consider:

Review what is connected to each switch and consider its’ requirement. Example is Storage devices and VMs. Do they need to go to maintenance mode.

Setup a Meraki Case prior to upgrade. The rollback option is only available if the upgrade is successful. Otherwise you’ll need to reach out to Meraki support to roll back.

Waiting time varies and no indicator is available. If an upgrade takes longer than 30 minutes, reach out to Meraki Support.

Meraki will give a completed status when the first device comes back online or 30 minutes has passed. Meraki consider the upgrade is successful if the device is up for 2 hours.

As always if you have any questions on getting Cisco Meraki MS switches set up for you and your business and would like to schedule a free consultation with us, please reach out to us at sales@lookingpoint.com and we’ll be happy to help!