ontap upgrade to 8.1.3

[RATNATHURAI]

I am palning to upgrade the ontap software to 8.1.3 from 8.0.2 for a fas2040 HA pair.

I have not done this before,  I have to upgrade the disk firware prior to this software upgrade .

1- Do I have to perform disk qualifier, disk firmware and software upgrade together or I can do the disk firmware and diskqualifier upgrades first and wait for software upgrade another day?

2- Will software upgrade update shelf firmware?

[HENRYPAN2]

Hi RATNATHURAI,

See my 2 cents below:

1- Do I have to perform disk qualifier, disk firmware and software upgrade together ? Yes

2- Will software upgrade update shelf firmware? Yes

Good luck

Henry

[RATNATHURAI]

Thank you for your reply.

I downloaded the disk qualifier software and noticed that there are two ver together  that is, ver 2 and ver 3.

my system has already ver2.

Do I have to copy both ver to /etc/ ?

[gavin_meadows]

1. you can do them separately.  if you can do your disk and shelf firmware upgrades in advance this will make the DOT upgrade quicker - sometimes netapp do not release the latest fw versions separately and can only be applied with an ontap upgrade.

2. the latest firware upgrades shipped with the version of DOT you are upgrading to will get installed if they are newer then the ones currently on the shelves/disks.

regarding the disk qual versions you can copy all versions across:

qual_devices          For releases prior to 7.2.1

qual_devices_v2       For releases 7.2.1, 7.2.2 and 7.2.3

qual_devices_v2.copy  Backup copy of v2 file

qual_devices_v3       For releases 7.2.4 and later

qual_devices_v3.copy  Backup copy of v3 file

thanks

Gav

[RATNATHURAI]

Thanks Gavin,

Is shelf module part of the ontap? if it is part of that, Can I just install disk qual and disk firmware for now to save the time and leave the disk shelf firmware later with ontap ?

Also I believe the disk firmware is auto update provided we enable bacgroup update ?

[gavin_meadows]

yes disk FW is automatic if you have the below options set:

1. Check or set the raid.background_disk_fw_update option to on

To Check:         options raid.background_disk_fw_update.enable

To Set:              options raid.background_disk_fw_update.enable on

2. Place the new disk firmware File into the /etc/disk_fw directory

The system will recognize the new available version and will non-disruptively
upgrade all the disks requiring a firmware update to that new version in the
background.

the shelf firmware is a quick process (depends on how many shelves) and is non disruptive (depending on module type) so i'd personally get these done ahead of the DOT upgrade.

The documentation/instructions for both processes is very straight forward so i would suggest you read through it before proceeding,

Gavin