Hello Fellas,

If you have upgraded your ONTAP before you must have read or heard of three standard procedures recommended by NetApp in their NetApp upgrade guide. Here I explain the other way which I always used to upgrade Data ONTAP, right from my first upgrade couple of years ago. This procedure is nothing but a mix of two of the procedures defined by NetApp and there is no way it can go wrong theoritically. I Had performed over 30 filer ONTAP upgrades in different customer environments with a success rate of 100%.

This article doesnt talk about the upgrading disk f/w, Shelf firmware or microcode. It only talks about ONTAP upgrade and the prerequisite like firmware revisions still applicable and this is not gonna bypass any of them. If you feel this blog is little long then just scroll down to bottom and read last 3 paragraphs(Small ones) which is what I call My Way of upgrading.

First lets look at the three standard procedures for upgrading ONTAP as defined in NetApp upgrade guide.

* Before Upgrade I recommend you to raise a support call with NetApp asking for ONTAP Upgrade plan if you have your Autosupport Enabled, provide them the filer serial numbers you want to upgrade and they will get back to you with a detailed plan generated using automated tools. This is important in understanding dependancies like System Firmware, Shelf Firmware and Disk Firware. If you are do not have Autosupport enabled, read the release notes of ONTAP to check them.
1)HTTP Server (Unix/Windows Admin host)
 ->Get the System Files for your filer model (.exe) for HTTP server upgrade & also other firmware if required and not bundled in ONTAP(which is most cases).
 ->load it on your webserver.
 ->Log on to filer which needs upgrade
 ->Execute the following commands and you are done,
            software get <<url where system files is located>>
            software install <systemfilename.exe>>
            software download
 ->You are done with ONTAP upgrade, you may wish to upgrade disk firmware or shelf firmware
 ->Reboot your filer to start using new ONTAP.(Before rebooting you can use version -b to check its upgraded or not)

2) Windows Server (Admin Host)
 ->Get the System Files for your filer model (.exe) for Windows host upgrade & also other firmware if required and not bundled in ONTAP(which is most cases).
 ->Map the vol0 as Network drive (Writable)
 ->Extract the .exe file onto vol0
 ->Execute the following commands and you are done,
           software install <systemfilename.exe>>
           software download
 ->You are done with ONTAP upgrade, you may wish to upgrade disk firmware or shelf firmware
 ->Reboot your filer to start using new ONTAP.(Before rebooting you can use version -b to check its upgraded or not)

3) UNIX Server (Admin Host)
 ->Get the System Files for your filer model (.tar) for UNIX/Linux host upgrade & also other firmware if required and not bundled in ONTAP(which is most cases).
 ->Mount the vol0 (Writeable)
 ->Extract the .exe file onto vol0
 ->Execute the following commands and you are done,
            software install <systemfilename.exe>>
            software download
 ->You are done with ONTAP upgrade, you may wish to upgrade disk firmware or shelf firmware
 ->Reboot your filer to start using new ONTAP.(Before rebooting you can use version -b to check its upgraded or not)

NOTE:You can peform upgrade remotely but I recommend you to be near filer incase if your filer doesn’t come up after reboot you can use diagnostic tools to troubleshoot. I faced one instance like that and this is due to the NetApp had not bundled the right firmware. (6.5P3 to 6.5.P5 if I remember it right)

Mavericks Way or My Way of upgrade:
 ->Get the System Files for your filer model (.exe) for HTTP server upgrade & also other firmware if required and not bundled in ONTAP(which is most cases).
 ->copy the .exe system file to the /etc/software folder on vol0 of Filer which needs an upgrade. (use checksums to verify file is copied properly)
 ->Log on to filer which needs upgrade
 ->Execute the following commands and you are done,
            software list (It should show you the newly copied file)
            software install <systemfilename.exe>>
            software download
 ->You are done with ONTAP upgrade, you may wish to upgrade disk firmware or shelf firmware
 ->Reboot your filer to start using new ONTAP.(Before rebooting you can use version -b to check its upgraded or not)

What am I doing here actually is nothing but doing the job of software get command manually. When you issue a software get it gets the file and places it in /etc/software on vol0 and we are exactly doing the same.

Whats the advantage of doing this way:
Strictly speaking nothing but if you don’t have webserver or don’t want to use winzip or tar command then this is for you.Its as simple as http server method even if you don’t have webserver.

Drop a comment for any kind of discussions We love it.

Have a Nice Day
Chundi