Easiest/Cleanest way to upgrade a head?

pborkstrom · ‎2009-12-02

I'm using an r200 as a snapmirror destination for all my filers around the corporation. The r200 is off maintenance and a 3160 has been purchased to replace the r200. The r200 has 12 shelves, and the 3160 has only the one shelf. My migration plan is basically to shut the r200 down, plug the shelves into the 3160, rename to the old r200 name, and re-IP to the 200's old IP addy.

When talking to a colleague who is friends with a Netapp pro, he says that upgrading heads is a simple thing. My migration plan sounds like it's not that clean. I'm thinking of copying the snapmirror.conf file, /etc/rc file, and host.equiv, ect.. files to the /etc/ dir of the 3160.

If I want the 3160 to host the exact same configuration as the 3160, what is the cleanest/best/easiest way to accomplish this? I have a tape library that backs up the r200 via fiber and I also have a Krazeon that crawls data for compliance/legal reasons. Changing either the Krazeon or the Netbackup schedule may be quite troublesome. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Phil

Ps. I've never done a head migration. I'm not exactly sure what to expect. Any advice/pointers would also be greatly appreciated.

adamfox · ‎2009-12-03

What I typically do is match the ONTAP release between the two heads. You can console in to a box even with no disks and watch it try to boot and see the ONTAP rev.

Once you match then, then you need to fix any ethernet interface names in /etc/rc. The disks will take care of themselves. Then you should be able to swap away.

If you're running FCP, you may want to check your zones, just in case.

That's basically it. I'm sure if I'm missing something obvious, someone will comment, but that's how I've done it for years.

Hope this helps

pborkstrom · ‎2009-12-03

The 3160 has a shelf with a flexvol marked as root. Should I remove the 3160 shelf and just plug the r200, or do I need that root vol on the 3160?

Basically if my r200 head just blew up and I plugged in a new 3160 head, would it just work as is?

scottgelb · ‎2009-12-03

I agree with Adam on matching the ONTAP on the new head or using tftp or http boot to match the version... some NetApp docs say to push the ontap for the new head on the old one but don't download until after head swap... I don't like being stuck between things and usually just boot the new head to the same version on it's flash or by tftp or http (or floppy in the old days...lots of floppies) then after the head swap push the ontap version and download for that version.. and of course up front before boot reassign drives or assign drives to the new controller then destroy mailbox local and partner if a cluster..

ONE BIG R200 consideration though... it might not be head swap solution like most cases.. What disks and shelf modules? Make sure to check... the R200 used AT-FC and AT-FC2 modules as well as AT-FCX later... the fc1 and fc2 modules are not supported on anything but R200 (and R150 if expanded this way)... And also disk types... The R200 used both 5400 and 7200 RPM SATA disks... 5400 aren't supported on FAS.. another thing is make sure there are TWO modules in the shelf...many R200s were single path and had a shelf filler... if you are multipathing to the 3160..

1) Make sure you have all AT-FCX modules, not at-fc or at-fc2.. and make sure 2 in the shelf

2) Disk types...make sure supported disk types on the 3160 (7200RPM disks not 5400).

pborkstrom · ‎2009-12-03

Gang,

I did notice that the AT-FC and AT-FC2 modules were not supported (my 1st run at upgrading this taught me that). I did not know about the 5400 rpm drives. We have 70-something disks. Will the presence of those disks prevent the upgrade from being successful?

Since the 3160 came with a shelf, I was able to bring it up and load DoT 7.3.1.1 (same as on my r200). Now that it's already loaded, do I need to plug my r200 shelves in and mark the other volume as root? If I plug in the r200 shelves and keep the shelf that I had on my 3160, won't that mean that there are 2 volumes marked as root? Will it wig out if that happens?

pborkstrom · ‎2009-12-07

I just spoke to a collegue of mine and he said when I plug the shelves into the fas3160 from the r200 that it will show all the disks as unowned. He says that the disks will still be owned by the r200 regardless of what I name the 3160. If so, is it safe to just take ownership of all the disks once I migrate them to the 3160? Anything I need to look out for?

pascalduk · ‎2009-12-07

You need to take ownership on the 3160, because software ownership is mandatory. It just makes it easier that the r200 does not have software ownership on.