ONTAP upgrade 7.3.2 to 7.3.6 and the impact on snapmirror

[rschramm]

Greetings,

We have two 2040s at two different physical locations that act as eachothers DR site. So both systems are snapmirror destinations. Since we can't upgrade both systems on the same day, does anyone know if upgrading on to 7.3.6 on one filer will break snapmirror in one direction? I know NetApp says that it might but they are not prefectly clear. Here is their exact wording: If the source system is upgraded first, the destination system might not be able to read the source Snapshot copies, leading to failed SnapMirror transfers.

Thank you,

Ryan

[pdaemon4950]

Hi,

Are you using QSM (Qtree Snapmirror) or VSM (Volume Snapmirror). If you are using QSM, then there usually no issues going between different release of ONTAP as it if file based. If you are using VSM (block based) then there are certain restrictions. See the output from the Snapmirror best practises guide below:

---------------------------------

SnapMirror volume replication is block-for-block replication; it transfers the file system verbatim.

Therefore earlier major releases of Data ONTAP cannot understand file system transfers from a later

major release. Data ONTAP 7.2 and 7.3 and 8.0 are examples of three different major release versions.

Data ONTAP 7.3.3 and 7.3.5 are examples of same major release but different minor releases. Table 1

shows version restrictions for volume SnapMirror.

Table 1) Volume SnapMirror version restrictions.

Volume SnapMirror Source Volume SnapMirror Destination Replication Possible?

Data ONTAP 7.2      Data ONTAP 7.3      Yes

Data ONTAP 7.3      Data ONTAP 7.2      No

Data ONTAP 7.3.x    Data ONTAP 7.3.y   Yes

Data ONTAP 8.0.x    Data ONTAP 8.0.y  Yes

Regards

Philipp

[aborzenkov]

As long as major version does not change, it is OK. Major version is second digit, so both are 7.3 and compatible.

But it makes sense to update destination first anyway.

[rschramm]

Thanks guys. That's exactly the answer I was looking for.