Checkpoint upgrade recommendation

[h2k]

Dear Checkmates,

I want to perform software upgrade for one of my customers who is having 12600 hardware for gateways and an Open server for Management.  Currently they are having R80.10(take 288). This is an old hardware and they will go for a new one later this year, but since the support for R80.10 ends in May 2021, we want to do the software upgrade first. Can I go for R81 or R80.40? Also what are the best practices one should follow when doing such upgrades. Please advice.

Thanks,

Hari

[Dorit_Dor]

Few points 

1. We generally make versions widely recommended upon wide adoption in order to help customers make this choice. The recommendations can be found in sk95746

2. Right now the best fit wide choice is R80.40 

3. R81 has been out for quite some time and is definitely widely recommended for management versions (we have very large adoption of Smart Center and multi domain). R81 is excellent choice for management 

R81 GW also have good usage but we havent made it yet widely recommended as all its GW quality improvements are also released  into R80.40 and we were careful sending a message that customers should prefer R81 GW on top of R80.40 GW.  We want to save unnecessary movement. 

There is internal discussion on the communication next step and commentary is welcome 

4. So if I install or upgrade now, I definitely use R81 management and I would decide on the GW based on functionality. If I plan to use new GW feature in the near future, I would go with R81 but if not, I would take the most widely adopted GW and that is R80.40 

[h2k]

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I will go with your recommendation. R81 for the Management and R80.40 for the gateway, since I see that 12600 is not on the supported platforms for R81

[PhoneBoy]

Just know that coming from R80.10, R81 on the management will be a two-step upgrade (first upgrade to R80.40).
If you’re swapping the hardware, you’re definitely doing an advanced upgrade using the migration tools.
Further, to leverage the new filesystem for management (we went from ext3 to xfs), you need to perform a fresh install on the management (versus an in-place upgrade), which the advanced upgrade to R80.40 will allow for.
The process is well documented in the Install/Upgrade guides.

As for R80.40 over R81, I’d definitely go for R81 on the management.

[h2k]

Thanks for the reply, its very helpful.