NetApp CN1610 support

[grave fox]

We have a customer who is running a 6 node ONTAP cluster with CN1610 switches.

We have just bought a new AFF A20 to replace these 6 nodes but looking at HWU the minimum version for the A20 is 9.16.1

I would love to upgrade the current cluster to 9.14.1 and then SVM-DR everything over.

Looking at NetApp support site it says
ONTAP will not support the NetApp CN1610 Ethernet cluster switch beginning on 9.13.1 and later versions
https://kb.netapp.com/on-prem/ontap/OHW/OHW-KBs/What_versions_of_ONTAP_are_supported_with_CN1610_cluster_switches

Is this just a NetApp support limit or is it a hardware limit ?

The plan would be if we can upgrade to 9.14.1PX

1 week before migration upgrade current cluster to 9.14.1Px
Sync all SVM's over using SVM-DR
Next weekend cutover SVMs to A20 cluster.
Shutdown the de-comm old cluster.

Should i log a support case with NetApp or bring it up with our account team to see if we can do this ?

[fluid grotto]

Hardware limit. 1610 can’t handle the HA protocol.

There were many of crashed FAS500f because people tried them with the 1610.

[calm crag]

The 1610 doesn’t support Priority Flow Control (PFC) which is necessary as @fluid grotto said for HA.

IT is unsupported, but there is a mechanism that will temporarily allow you split the cluster ports away. The dedicated ports must be connected between the ha pairs in any case but if you have extra ports you might (and I stress MIGHT) be able to connect the a20 with the 1610. You should contact support to see if they will share it with you.

Would I do it? Probably not. There are other options

Look at data copy alternatives instead.

Your could use SVM Mobility which allows you replicate NAS based svms nearly non disruptively between clusters.

For LUNs you could create new LUNs and let the host replicate or snapmirror the LUNs and take a minimal outage or possibly use snap mirror business continuity (smbc).

For VMware datastores i would just create new datastores on the new unit and use storage vMotion

[grave fox]

i had a quick look at SVM mobility here and it says in fine print https://docs.netapp.com/us-en/ontap/svm-migrate/#prerequisites The destination cluster ONTAP version must be at the same or no more than two major newer versions as the source cluster. is this correct ?

[calm crag]

Yes. I’ve done plenty of times with a delta 2