ONTAP update planning

[THESALOPIAN]

I need to update to later version of ONTAP and after looking at a few YouTube videos they all recommend using ActiveIQ to produce an update plan.  When I log into ActiveIQ I don't see our organisation and when I try and add the serials from the nodes it says they're invalid.  Last year the organisation I work for moved support from NetApp to a 3rd party support provider, is it possible to use ActiveIQ without a current support agreement with NetApp? 

Are there any other good resources to help me plan the upgrade if I can't use ActiveIQ, I want a good plan as I haven't carried out an upgrade before.  

Thanks.

[pedro_rocha · Accepted solution]

Hello,

No, you cannot use active IQ without an active support plan from NetApp.

I guess you could start from here: https://docs.netapp.com/us-en/ontap/upgrade/index.html

Pedro

[THESALOPIAN]

Thanks for the information, I guessed this might be the case - I think it was short sighted to move our support away from NetApp but unfortunately there was nothing I could do.  I'll check out the linked documentation, thank you for your help.

[bretta]

@THESALOPIANI also have additional bad news for you. Your support contract is what entitles you to free updates to newer versions of Data ONTAP. Without a NetApp support contract, you can't update ONTAP. If a third party maintainer tells you something different, then they aren't being truthful.

[THESALOPIAN]

Hi @bretta that's not good news  😬.  We're currently running 9.1p19 and was thinking about upgrading to 9.1.p20 in the first instance.  I've got the software downloaded, is that something I'm able to do without breaching licensing?

[paul_stejskal]

I don't think so. I'm not a lawyer though.

[junwang]

Hi, THESALOPIAN

You need to contact the after-sales service provider of Netapp, obtain the ONTAP version that needs to be upgraded from them, and then perform the upgrade operation. This is the download website for the upgrade package, which requires an authorized account of Netapp to log in and download the upgrade package.
https://mysupport.netapp.com/site/products/all/details/ontap9/downloads-tab