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.