NetApp - ONTAP Minor Upgrade

This article is being written for a minor upgrade from ONTAP version 9.15.1P4 to 9.15.1P7

I will write a similar document for a major upgrade, which is currently available for us but we are not moving to 9.16.1 just yet

One thing we need to do before upgrading is to look at the upgrade recommendations in NetApp Digital Advisor - https://aiq.netapp.com/

We then need to navigate to the Upgrade Advisor page

If you click on the number 2 it should then take you to a similar looking screen to below

As you can see in the above screenshot, salcnetapp has already been update to 9.15.1P7, you can also see that the Target OS Version is 9.16.1 which we don not want to upgrade to just yet.

Select ofsnetapp and then click on 'View Upgrade Recommendation'

You will then be taken to a page where you should see something similar to below.

As you can see it is showing 9.15.1P4 as the Current OS version which is correct, Latest Patch version is 9.15.1P7 which is what we want to upgrade to in this instance, and the latest recommened release is 9.16.1 which we do not want to upgrade to just yet.

In the 'Select an OS Version' dropdown, click the drop down and select 9.15.1P7 (Recommended release).

Then click on 'Generate Upgrade Plan'

A window similar to below will then open, populate as shown and the click on 'Generate'. You will the be taken to the reports page.

It will take about 5/10 minutes for the report to be generated, you will receive and email to let you know the report has completed.

Once the report has completed you should see something similar tyo below on the reports page

Click download for the report that has completed. The pdf will be downloaded as a zip file which you will need to extract to view.

This report will include upgrade blockers/upgrade warnings which we have covered previously and any other pertinent information, it also includes a step by step guide to perform the upgrade.

We then need to go back to the upgrade recommendations page which if you click the browser back button it should take you there.

Again in the 'Select an OS Version' dropdown, click the drop down and select 9.15.1P7 (Recommended release).

Once you have selected the above you should see Risk Advisor on the same page update its information. What we want to look at is the Pre-upgrade Check tab, so click on that which should then display any Upgrade Blockers and any Upgrade Warnings

As you can see there are no Upgrade Blockers reported, but there are Upgrade Warnings.

Clicking on 'Verifying the San configuration' will take you to the following NetApp page - https://docs.netapp.com/us-en/ontap/upgrade/task_verifying_the_san_configuration.html

What you need to do here is confirm that each ESX host has 8 paths to the NetApp which i will explain below.

Click on Host ESX01, the click on configure, then click on Storage Devices, then click on one of the LUNS, in the screenshot below LUN 1 is selected, then click on Paths

As you can see in the screenshot above, there are 8 paths (total in bottom right of screen), which is correct.

Do the same for each of the Lancaster ESX hosts if it is ofsnetapp you are looking to upgrade, Salt Ayre ESX hosts if it is salcnetapp you are looking to upgrade.

Close the 'Verify SAN host configuration before an ONTAP upgrade' page and go back to the Digital Advisor upgrade page from whence you was directed and then click on 'Compatible ONTAP versions for SnapMirror relationships' which should then open the ONTAP document page for 'Compatible ONTAP versions for SnapMirror relationships' - https://docs.netapp.com/us-en/ontap/data-protection/compatible-ontap-versions-snapmirror-concept.html#unified-replication-relationships

Scroll down the page a bit and you should see an ONTAP interoperability charts looking similar to this

In this instance we are not moving to a different version of ONTAP so there are no issues with interoperability. We are going from 9.15.1P4 to 9.15.1P7 (minor version increase)

Connect to Jump02 and the login to the device you are wanting to perform the upgrade on

URL for SALCNetApp - https://salcnetapp/sysmgr/v4/

URL for OFSNetApp - https://ofsnetapp/sysmgr/v4/

Once logged in navigate to the CLUSTER section then click on Overview

Once in the Overview section click on Update

You will then be taken to the ONTAP update page which will look similar to below

We will need to download the ONTAP upgrade from NetApps website so open the following page - https://mysupport.netapp.com/site/products/all

From the drop down menu find and select 'ONTAP 9'

Then click on the Downloads tab, click on the drop down and select 9.15.1P7 which is the version we want to upgrade to and click on 'Go'

You will then be taken to a page where you will need to put a tick in the 'I have read the Caution/MustRead' field and the same for 'I have read the End User License Agreement' and finally click on 'Accept & Continue'

The next page is the actual download page

We want to download the first file as we are in a Non-restricted Country. Clicking on the download will start downloading the file to your pc. Once the file has downloaded you will need to copy the file to a location on Jump02 where we will be performing the upgrade.

Click on '+Add image' the select 'From local client' from the drop down you will be presented with and then locate the file you have just downloaded, in this instance the file is called 915P7_q_image.tgz, once file is selected click on Open

The page should then update to show the image you have just opened (this may take a couple of minutes)

Select 9.15.1P7 and the click on 'Validate' further down the page

The system will then validate the file we have uploaded and will possibly show you any warning, these will need checking and acting on accordingly.

We had the same warnings when upgrading SALCNetApp which myself and Shaun Crossman looked at, we did not make any changes after reading the warnings.

Click on 'Update with warnings' which will initiate the upgrade which will take apprximately and hour to complete.

You can expand each node to show the progress of the update.

Once the update has finished you should see a pop up message similar to below and be logged out.

If you log back into NetApp you should then see a page similar to below

If you then expand each node you should see further detailed information about the upgrade that has just taken place.

We can see that the upgrade has completed on both nodes and there are no errors.

Click on 'Dashboard' which should show us a brief overview of the health of the system

As you can see above there is one error showing, if you click on the error it will take you to Events section, you will then see that there are 2 Errors showing in on this page (see below).

If you click on the error message it will then show you the 2 errors in the event log.

You can expand the errors to find out more information.

This error was generated as part of the update process as one node took over from the other.

We had the same errors after updating SALCNetApp and those errors had cleared when i came in the next morning. (see below)

As of yet i don't know what would happen if it fails to upgrade. I would think a ticket logged with CDW would be required. I will create a solution article for logging a ticket with CDW.