Firmware upgrades

All of the modules in your FortiGate-7000 run the same firmware image. You upgrade the firmware from the primary FIM GUI or CLI just as you would any FortiGate product. During the upgrade process the firmware of all of the modules in the chassis upgrades in one step. Firmware upgrades should be done during a quiet time because traffic will briefly be interrupted during the upgrade process.

Before beginning a firmware upgrade, Fortinet recommends the following:

• Review the latest release notes for the firmware version that you are upgrading to.
• Verify the recommended upgrade path as documented in the release notes.
• Backup your FortiGate-7000 HA configuration.
• Review the services provided by your FortiGate-7000 before the upgrade and then again after the upgrade to make sure everything continues to operate normally. For example, you might want to verify that you can successfully access a key server used by your organization before the upgrade and make sure after the upgrade that you can still reach the server and that performance is comparable. You could also take a snapshot of key performance indicators (number of sessions, CPU usage, and memory usage) before the upgrade and verify that you see comparable performance after the upgrade .

For information about upgrading FortiGate-7000 HA configuration, see Upgrading FortiGate-7000 HA cluster firmware.