The considerations for changing the host protocol depend on the starting and ending protocols of the baseboard host ports and the HIC ports.
If you use a Mirroring feature or the Data Assurance (DA) feature, you must understand what happens to these features when you change the host port protocol.
Note: The following considerations apply only if you are converting a storage array that has already been in use. These considerations do not apply if you are converting a new storage array that does not yet have hosts and volumes defined.
Converting from FC to iSCSI
- Asynchronous Mirroring requires both the local storage array and the remote storage array to use the same protocol.
- If you are currently using Asynchronous Mirroring through the baseboard, you must deactivate Asynchronous Mirroring relationships using those ports before applying the feature pack.
- Refer to the online help for SANtricity System Manager to delete all mirror
consistency groups and remove all mirrored pairs from the
local and remote storage arrays. In addition, follow the instructions in the online help to deactivate Asynchronous Mirroring.
Note: If your configuration contains SAN Boot hosts connected to the FC baseboard ports, check the NetApp Interoperability Matrix Tool to ensure that the configuration is supported on iSCSI. If it is not, you cannot convert the host protocol to iSCSI.
- The Synchronous Mirroring feature is not supported for iSCSI.
- If you are currently using Synchronous Mirroring relationships via the baseboard ports, you must deactivate those Synchronous Mirroring relationships.
- Refer to the online help for SANtricity System Manager to remove all synchronous mirrored pairs, which removes mirror relationships on the local storage array and on the remote storage array. In addition, follow the instructions in the online help to deactivate Synchronous Mirroring.
Attention: If you do not deactivate Synchronous Mirroring relationships before converting to iSCSI, your system will lose data access and data loss might occur.
Converting from iSCSI to FC
- Asynchronous Mirroring requires both the local storage array and the remote storage array to use the same protocol. If you are currently using Asynchronous Mirroring with the baseboard ports, you must deactivate Asynchronous Mirroring before changing the protocol.
- Refer to the online help for SANtricity System Manager to delete all mirror
consistency groups and remove all mirrored pairs from the
local and remote storage arrays. In addition, follow the instructions in the online help to deactivate Asynchronous Mirroring.
Converting IB-iSER to/from IB-SRP
Mirroring operations need same host protocol
Mirroring operations are not affected if the host ports being used for mirroring keep the same protocol after you apply the feature pack. Even so, before applying the feature pack, you should confirm that all mirror consistency groups are synchronized. After applying the feature pack, you should test the communication between the local storage array and the remote storage array. Refer to the online help for SANtricity System Manager if you have questions on how to do this.
Note: Asynchronous and synchronous mirroring are not supported for NVMe over Fabrics. To disable Asynchronous and synchronous mirroring, the
disable storageArray feature=asyncMirror or disable storageArray feature=syncMirror must be ran through the command line interface. Refer to the
Disable storage array feature mirroring commands under the CLI Command Reference Online Help for more information on how to disable mirroring.