I am befuddled that new systems are released with minimum versions of ONTAP. In past, I was able to buy new hardware, downgrade ONTAP to my data centers' standard and upgrade all of my systems in lock step. Under the new guidance, I can't buy new hardware because it will not be compatible with my current cluster. That is a dis-service to customers, and NetApp, becuase it prohibits use of newer system with older versions of ONTAP, and I am not talking about depracated legacy versions, they could be version from six months ago. Can someone on NetApp staff push this to some PM's?
#FAS/AFF/ONTAP Versions
idle sandal
fair osprey
This is no sinister plot though, it has a rather simple explanation... How should older ONTAP versions know about the hardware devices (and required drivers) for newer hardware (that is not even released when that ONTAP version was released)? There have always been minimum ONTAP versions that you couldn't downgrade past
this is the reason why you can have mixed-version clusters to do a hardware refresh (which allow up to a difference of 4 major versions)
Do you have a concrete example that you're having trouble with (ONTAP version(s) and hardware models)?
idle sandal
I did not accuse anyone of having a sinister plot. You are correct in that there have always been backporting limits, but usually you were allowed to go back to within a year or so. I am running 9.14.1, a current release, yet all new systems require 9.16.1. 9.16.1 has not been out long enough to make sure major boogs have been caught. In fact my last update from 9.14.1P9 to 9.14.1P12 caused a horrible crash on one the HA pairs of my cluster, and since I am using FG's took all of my shares down. (It was caused by a boog, which, if I am not wrong, P12 was supposed to fix).
The entire point is, I want to buy new systems, but NetApp is preventing me with these new mimima. As for new features in new hardware, if I backport to an older release, I will not have them.
I will have them when I upgrade ALL of my systems to the mimimum releases.
Thank you for your prompt response.
BTW, not sure if you remember the old version implentation page on NOW which showed the version and the client installations on each of the versions. We used to use that page to allow at least 150 sites on a version before we would consider an upgrade. At the time I worked for a cable/satellite broadcaster, which could not afford downtime. Now I work for a Defense, which really cannot afford downtime, especially when running GRID jobs which may take one or more weeks to run.
That is why I am feeling the pressure from management and Defense, and I want to share the anxiety with NetApp.
robust patio
Not entirely true
All the platforms announced at NATO y Insights last year (sep 2024) was based on the current >shipping< release at the time (9.15.1).
The products released this year are based on 9.16.1 which is the current shipping release.
There are really nice things (like QAT) which doesn’t exist in older code and will never be back ported.
It’s all about timing and what hardware is in the platform
fair osprey
I did not accuse anyone of having a sinister plot. You are correct in that ther...
I totally understand your use-case, but nobody is "preventing" you from anything. You can, for example, still buy the A400 and A800, which are not EOA yet and can go back all the way to ONTAP 9.7 if needed.
On the contrary, if you truly want the most stable system you can think of, you should be using these older, more stable systems. Hardware also goes through revisions, which are not as visible as ONTAP revisions but you can see them in sysconfig -a for example. New hardware starts at or around revision A1 , but the A400 for example has gone up to at least E3 now, which means lots of hardware bugs fixed
robust patio
This use case is for spinners. You either get the non-expandable fas2820 (ONTAP 9.13- with at best 25g Ethernet) or a new fas50(9.16)/70(9.15). the fas8300(ONTAP 9.7, although with hardware the minimum is a 9.14 P release if I recall) is still around but I’m suspecting not for long which will seriously inhibit this process(born Nov 2019, almost 6 years old)
rotund onyx
Could always create a new cluster 🙂 I actually don't mind the idea of multiple clusters, protects some of your workload from nastyy bugs like you experienced with your 9.14.1P12 upgrade