Replace FAS3140 controllers without support contract

[salah76]

Hello All,

We neeed to replace our old FAS3140 controllers with new purchased  FAS3250 controllers,and reuse the old shelves with migrating configurations and the data. our FAS3140 controllers had reached EOS,  and we are worried of replacing the controllers without support in case we face a major issue, and we won't be able to use upgrade advisor to help. and renewing the support contract for the FAS3140 just for the puropse of replace is very expensive. please advise?

Best regards

Salah

[colsen]

Hello,

I'd reach out to your support account manager and sales team and ask them if they would extend support to you as part of your headswap.  We had a similar situation where we were replacing older V3170 with FAS3250s and we essentially performed the swap under the coverage of the new controllers.  Our V3170s were technically still under support at the time of the swap, but as long as they'll let you open up a case for the work based on your new equipment you should be fine.

You shouldn't need to be generating an upgrade advisor per se for this effort - you're mostly going to have to do a ton of maintenance mode disk reassigns and such.  We went through the process twice - once with adult (i.e. NetApp supervision) and the second time we performed it entirely on our own.  Just time consuming, but if you have a check list and follow it things go fairly smoothly...

Hope that helps,

Chris

[salah76]

Thanks a lot Chris your replay, could you please share with me the upgrade process you went through it.

salah_juma@hotmail.com

Best regards

Salah

[AlexDawson · Accepted solution]

Hi there,

General principle is to ensure both controllers are running the same version of ONTAP. For the FAS3250/FAS3140, both support ONTAP 8.1.2 through 8.2.5. Upgrade the FAS3140 if needed to make it match. 

Then swap network cables, SAS and FC cables, and reassign disk ownership. This document outlines the process for moving from a FAS20xx to a FAS31xx - the process of "using the FAS20xx root volume" is essentially what you want to follow - https://library.netapp.com/ecmdocs/ECMP1140585/html/index.html

If your system uses LUNs over FC or iSCSI, please ensure you follow the directions about saving LUN serial numbers and reserialising on the new system. I don't think it will be necessary in your scenario, but you should be prepared and verify this is the case.

As the other poster said, raise any case against the newer system, which is hopefully under support, and it will be fine.

[colsen]

Hello,

I had to wipe out a lot of details specific to our controllers/environment, but attached is a good overview of what we did.  Alex's note below is spot-on so just make sure you have all your ducks in a row (i.e. generate a list of all the commands you'll need to run beforehand) and that goes a long way to avoid the pitfalls.

Good luck,

Chris