FAIS FlashArray-Implementation-Specialist Updated Exam

Pure Storage has introducedSelf-Service Upgrades (SSU)via thePure1 Manageportal to provide customers with greater flexibility and control over their maintenance windows.

If a client cannot wait for a scheduled assisted upgrade with a Support Engineer, the validated and supported path is togo through the Self-Service upgrade portal on Pure1 Manage.

This portal performs the same pre-flight health checks (Remote Assist, array health, pathing) that a Support Engineer would perform manually.

Once the checks pass, the customer can schedule and initiate the Purity upgrade directly from the cloud dashboard.

The process is fully automated and monitored by Pure1. This eliminates the wait time for human resource availability while maintaining the safety guardrails of a supported upgrade. Manual USB installs (Option A) or direct CLI downloads (Option B) are generally restricted or not recommended for standard customer workflows without specific support supervision.

After a controller upgrade or any maintenance that involves path failovers, it is critical to verify that the host multipathing software has restored connectivity to all paths and that I/O is being distributed correctly. The specific command to validate this in Purity ispurehost monitor --balance.

purehost monitor --balance: This command provides a real-time view of I/O statistics per initiator (host path). It highlights imbalances where one path might be taking zero traffic while others are overloaded, which typically indicates a pathing configuration issue, a bad cable, or a host that has not correctly rediscovered the path after the controller reboot.

purehost list simply displays configured hosts, not live performance data.

pureport list displays the status of array ports but does not show the per-host I/O distribution required to verify "balance."

=========

During and after a Hardware Non-Disruptive Upgrade (HWNDU), the FlashArray may generate various alerts related to component removals, path failovers, or temporary redundancy reductions. Once the upgrade is physically complete and the software has stabilized, the Implementation Engineer must verify that the array has returned to a fully healthy state.

The commandpurealert listis the primary tool for this verification. It displays the current table of active alerts on the system.

If the array is healthy, this list should be empty or contain only "Info" level messages.

If the system is still recovering, you might see alerts with a status indicating they are "closing" or "downgrading" as the conditions resolve (e.g., "Controller redundancy restored").

pureaudit list shows the history of user commands, not system health alerts. puremaintenance is not a standard command for checking alert status. Therefore, purealert list is the correct command to validate that no critical hardware or software issues remain active after the maintenance window.

Validating multipath I/O balance is a critical post-configuration step. The FlashArray CLI provides a specific monitoring tool for this purpose under the purehost command suite.

purehost monitor --balanceis the correct command.

monitor: This keyword initiates a real-time display of performance metrics (IOPS, bandwidth, latency).

--balance: This flag breaks down the metricsper initiator(per HBA/path) for the specified host(s).

The output allows the engineer to see if I/O is flowing evenly across all paths. If one path shows 0 IOPS while others are active, it indicates a zoning, cabling, or multipathing configuration issue that must be resolved to ensure high availability.