can we get a license for >2 nodes - not for production

[stephen2]

All, I have a need for a 4-node cluster for training purposes and to support a customer engagement in my home lab.  I know the supplied license is limited to two nodes, but was wondering if I could get a special license (maybe privately outside this forum) to accommodate this special request.

Another thing I would like to do is set up peer clusters, but I don't think I can do that with the same 2-node licenses (one per peer cluster)

If this is not the appropriate place to ask, can someone please direct me to the correct person?

[dmundhenk]

I am curious about this also. I have three 2-node clusters and am looking at merging 2 of them into a 4-node cluster. Would like to be able to make a 4-node sim cluster, not sure why this would be a big deal...

[tardie]

You cannot "merge" two clusters together, clustered ONTAP doesn't work that way.

- You could unjoin the nodes from the cluster one node at a time (basically destroying the cluster), initialize the nodes, then joining them to another cluster one at a time. Of course the simulators are limited to a 2-node cluster.

- create a peer relationship between two clusters and replicate between the clusters using SnapMirror.

[dmundhenk]

I realize this - I'm planning to migrate the existing data from cluster B to cluster A, cutover the users (talking about a 'real' production environment here) then destroy cluster B. Then I will have to move the cluster interconnects for B to the A switches, and then I can join the B nodes to the A cluster, end state = cluster A only with 4 nodes.

The reason I was asking about the Simulator 2-node limit, is because it would be *really nice* to be able to simulate a process like that before doing it for real.  The 2-node limit seems very silly to me, for something that can scale up to 24 nodes.... 😕

[tardie]

Vsims are limited to 2-nodes as documented in the guide.