Removal of nodes from a cluster - Hardware Upgrade

GLOYNSSNS — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 14:11:12 GMT

Hi,

I have a question around the permanent removal of nodes from a cluster, such as during a hardware refresh and I'm trying to establish the correct procedures/checklists to go through to ensure that during a hardware upgrade nothing is overlooked and user disruption is kept to a minimum.

Scenario: (All nodes running ONTAP 9.1 P7 and are HA pairs)

2 x FAS 8020 units (cluster nodes 1 to 4)

1 x AFF A200 unit (cluster nodes 5 and 6)

Assuming that all user data volumes have been migrated to the aggregates on the AFF nodes 5+6 then this should, I believe, just leave the following steps however I would welcome any comments to correct or enhance the process.

• Migrate Data SVM root volumes from FAS8020 aggregates on to AFF nodes (we already have LS-mirror copies but the ‘live’ version is still on the 8020s)
• Data LIFs for CIFS and iSCSI (hosted on the 8020s) have to be removed, or migrated to the new AFF nodes.
• Make the 8020 nodes ineligible for cluster RDB operations (i.e. remove eligibility forcing it to use one of the AFF nodes) - using command: node modify -node nodenametoberemoved -eligibility false
• Perform a 'cluster leave' operation on the 8020’s - does this need to be performed on each node in a HA pair?

• Physically disconnect the node from cluster network
• Zero the data disks

Thanks in advance,

Garth

Re: Removal of nodes from a cluster - Hardware Upgrade

OZWALKERZ — Wed, 03 Oct 2018 00:28:40 GMT

This is probably a bit late for you, but I'm going to reply anyway for my own future reference....

According to the doco, you remove the nodes one at a time, but you must remove both nodes of a HA pair.

https://docs.netapp.com/ontap-9/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.netapp.doc.dot-cm-sag%2FGUID-6731B7F7-0C48-4474-A67B-E1F1CCBA77A6.html

We would also do a sanitise on all the disks (we either have to sanitise, or destroy the disks)

Be interested to know how it went!

Cheers,

Stuart

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Removal of nodes from a cluster - Hardware Upgrade

Re: Removal of nodes from a cluster - Hardware Upgrade