FAS 8200 - ONTAP 9.7 - Upgrade Motherboard BIOS Firmware

[Larry1961]

Hi Team,

I am almost new to netapp. I am trying to put a plan together for taking the firmware motherborad BIOS from 11:11 to 11:16. Lets say I have a two node netapp, say for example:

FAS-Node-01

FAS-Node-02

I do not quite understand the failover takeover and giveback in the attached plan from Netapp. It is not clear whether it automatically reboots on takeover. They tend to mix different scenarios up.   In which order I do  update a node and check that I have the correct one to start with? I guess what would help is the scenario for FW upgrade would be good! 

A partner is another name for a node? Like FAS-Node-01 partner is FAS-Node-02 and vice vera.

//When I download the FW, does it automatically update the BIOS waiting for a reboot?

system firmware download -package http://web_server/path/BIOS_11.16.zip

Thank you

Larry

[hmoubara]

Hello @Larry1961 

When a node takes over its partner, it continues to serve and update data in the partner's aggregates and volumes. To do this, the node takes ownership of the partner's aggregates, and the partner's LIFs migrate according to network interface failover rules.

And partner is the other node in the HA system. so per example in your setup FAS-Node-01 and FAS-Node-02 are partner to each other.

The steps listed in the upgrade documentation should be followed in able to get it all updated.

You can check the below documentation for further information and to help answer any further queries regrading the process:

https://docs.netapp.com/us-en/ontap/high-availability/index.html

https://kb.netapp.com/Advice_and_Troubleshooting/Data_Storage_Systems/FAS_Systems/Update_service_image_(BIOS)_from_the_LOADER_prompt

Thanks 

[andris · Accepted solution]

The HTML Instructions page for BIOS 11.16 should address your questions.

https://mysupport.netapp.com/site/downloads/firmware/system-firmware-diagnostics/instruction-viewer/SYSTEM/30804108_signed/system-installation-instruc...

[weiliu]

1. After takeover, the node you specify will automatically restart. Before the takeover, you need to check whether your service port has configuration redundancy. After takeover, you need to check whether the service has been taken over on the healthy node
2. If you want to upload BIOS microcode under LOADER, please enter LOADER as prompted during the system loading process, instead of entering LOADER after the node has displayed "Waiting for giveback", because this may cause you to fail to upload the installation package