After addressing the concerns posted about this article with our Product team, here is thier statment which best answers your concerns:
"FAS3240A and FAS3270A upgrades to the “AE” equivalent is not supported. During new platform training sessions upgrade paths were covered and it was emphasized the importance of selling FAS3240 and FAS3270 with IOXMs since changing from “A” to “AE” at some later date isn’t something anyone could count on. Understandably, folks want to know more about the whys on this limitation. The most important why is the upgrade path has not been tested, the results of it unknown, and given this isn’t something NetApp can support.
Having said that, an evaluation is underway on the “A” to “AE” upgrade path. If we are able to support the “A” to “AE” upgrade path at some point we’ll certainly convey this information to the field."
I Russ George's intent of this article was, and is to alert those who may have missed the importance of understanding what the upgrade options and limits are.