FAS2554 upgrade to ONTAP 9.1 - Is recommended?

[alessice]

Hi,

my FAS2554 (20x4TB+4x400SSD) is running 8.3.2P12 and works fine (I'm using only NFS as protocol).

Now I would like upgrade to 9.1P19 as suggested by Upgrade Advisor because for 8.3 NetApp don't provide anymore support.

Since FAS2554 was born with 8.3 so, is safe and recommended upgrade to 9.1?

Should I expect a drop in performance?

Thanks

[JamesIlderton · Accepted solution]

We have FAS25xx series controllers running 9.5P4 with no issue, and upgrades have made them faster, not slower (when using the same features/workloads).

[paul_stejskal]

I'd go as high as possible. There are a few things that will make 9.3+ better. Ideally if you can go to 9.5Platest that would be the best.

[alessice]

Thanks Paul,

I will follow the upgrade path provided from Upgrade Advisor, so 8.3 -> 9.1, 9.1 -> 9.x and so on.

But ONTAP 9.5 can works fine with FAS2554 that have less RAM than 2750 (36GB vs 64GB)?

[paul_stejskal]

Yes. I've seen several filers on 9.5 on 2500s.

[paul_stejskal]

One gotcha we just identified. A SSL cert expired on the 6th within ONTAP, so if you go past 9.1 to 9.3 then 9.5, you will encounter an error. See https://kb.netapp.com/app/answers/answer_view/a_id/1089462 for more information.

If you encounter this problem this is well documented and Support can help on a case when doing the upgrade, otherwise patch releases for 9.3 and 9.5 will be out in a few days it seems.

[alessice]

Hi,

I have done the upgrade via CLI and all works fine.

Only one thing need to fix, about every 5 minutes in the Events Log I found this debug messages:

acp.command.connect: Could not establish connection with 192.168.2.145.

acp.command.connect: Could not establish connection with 192.168.2.145.

and from console:

cluster2::> storage shelf acp module show
Node               Module Name        State
-----------------  -----------------  ----------------------
cluster2-node01    1.0.B              connection-error
                   1.0.A              connection-error
cluster2-node02    1.0.B              connection-error
                   1.0.A              connection-error
4 entries were displayed.

cluster2::> storage shelf acp show       
Node                Channel          Connectivity
------------------  ---------------  ----------------------
cluster2-node01     out-of-band      full-connectivity
cluster2-node02     out-of-band      full-connectivity
2 entries were displayed.

cluster2::> storage shelf acp show -instance 

             Node: cluster2-node01
          Channel: out-of-band
    Enable Status: true
             Port: e0P
       IP Address: 192.168.2.55
           Subnet: 192.168.0.1
          Netmask: 255.255.252.0
Connection Status: full-connectivity

             Node: cluster2-node02
          Channel: out-of-band
    Enable Status: true
             Port: e0P
       IP Address: 192.168.1.253
           Subnet: 192.168.0.1
          Netmask: 255.255.252.0
Connection Status: full-connectivity
2 entries were displayed.

cluster2::> storage shelf acp module show -instance 

               Node: cluster2-node01
        Module Name: 1.0.B
       Adapter Name: 0a
        MAC Address: 00:a0:98:c6:ea:91
           IOM Type: iom6e
Shelf Serial Number: SHJHU1702000451
         IP Address: 192.168.2.145
   Protocol Version: 2.1.01.22
   Firmware Version: 01.22
        Assigner ID: 537067641
              State: connection-error
       Last Contact: 514

               Node: cluster2-node01
        Module Name: 1.0.A
       Adapter Name: 0a
        MAC Address: 00:a0:98:c6:ed:91
           IOM Type: iom6e
Shelf Serial Number: SHJHU1702000451
         IP Address: 192.168.1.145
   Protocol Version: 2.1.01.22
   Firmware Version: 01.22
        Assigner ID: 537067641
              State: active
       Last Contact: 36

               Node: cluster2-node02
        Module Name: 1.0.B
       Adapter Name: 0b
        MAC Address: 00:a0:98:c6:ea:91
           IOM Type: iom6e
Shelf Serial Number: SHJHU1702000451
         IP Address: 192.168.2.145
   Protocol Version: 2.1.01.22
   Firmware Version: 01.22
        Assigner ID: 537067641
              State: connection-error
       Last Contact: 514

               Node: cluster2-node02
        Module Name: 1.0.A
       Adapter Name: 0b                                                        
        MAC Address: 00:a0:98:c6:ed:91
           IOM Type: iom6e
Shelf Serial Number: SHJHU1702000451
         IP Address: 192.168.1.145
   Protocol Version: 2.1.01.22
   Firmware Version: 01.22
        Assigner ID: 537067641
              State: active
       Last Contact: 36
4 entries were displayed.

cluster2::> system service-processor show
                               IP           Firmware
Node          Type Status      Configured   Version   IP Address
------------- ---- ----------- ------------ --------- -------------------------
cluster2-node01 
              SP   online      true         2.4.1P2   192.168.7.210
cluster2-node02 
              SP   online      true         2.4.1P2   192.168.7.211
2 entries were displayed.

I need to fix somethings?

Thanks