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Overview of the ARL upgrade

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Before you upgrade the nodes using ARL, you should understand how the procedure works. In this content, the procedure is broken down into several stages.

Upgrade the node pair

To upgrade the node pair, you need to prepare the original nodes and then perform a series of steps on both the original and new nodes. You can then decommission the original nodes.

ARL upgrade sequence overview

During the procedure, you upgrade the original controller hardware with the replacement controller hardware, one controller at a time, taking advantage of the HA pair configuration to relocate the ownership of non-root aggregates. All non-root aggregates must undergo two relocations to reach their final destination, which is the correct upgraded node.

Each aggregate has a home owner and current owner. The home owner is the actual owner of the aggregate, and the current owner is the temporary owner.

The following table describes the high-level tasks you perform during each stage and the state of aggregate ownership at the end of the stage. Detailed steps are provided later in the procedure:

Stage Steps

Stage 1. Prepare for the upgrade

During Stage 1, you run prechecks and, if required, correct aggregate ownership. You must record certain information if you are managing storage encryption by using the Onboard Key Manager and you can choose to quiesce the SnapMirror relationships.

Aggregate ownership at the end of Stage 1:

  • Node1 is the home owner and current owner of the node1 aggregates.

  • Node2 is the home owner and current owner of the node2 aggregates.

Stage 2. Relocate and retire node1

During Stage 2, you relocate node1 non-root aggregates and NAS data LIFs to node2. This process is largely automated; the operation pauses to enable you to check its status. You must manually resume the operation. If required, you relocate failed or vetoed aggregates. You must record the necessary node1 information for use later in the procedure and then retire node1. You can also prepare to netboot node3 and node4 later in the procedure.

Aggregate ownership at the end of Stage 2:

  • Node2 is the current owner of node1 aggregates.

  • Node2 is the home owner and current owner of node2 aggregates.

Stage 3. Install and boot node3

During Stage 3, you install and boot node3, map the cluster and node-management ports from node1 to node3, and verify the node3 installation. If required, you set the FC or UTA/UTA2 configuration on node3 and confirm that node3 has joined quorum. You also relocate the node1 NAS data LIFs and non-root aggregates from node2 to node3 and verify that the SAN LIFs exist on node3.

Aggregate ownership at the end of Stage 3:

  • Node3 is the home owner and current owner of node1 aggregates.

  • Node2 is the home owner and current owner of node2 aggregates.

Stage 4. Relocate and retire node2

During Stage 4, you relocate node2 non-root aggregates and non-SAN data LIFs to node3. You also record the necessary node2 information and then retire node2.

Aggregate ownership at the end of Stage 4:

  • Node3 is the home owner and current owner of aggregates that originally belonged to node1.

  • Node2 is the home owner of node2 aggregates.

  • Node3 is the current owner of node2 aggregates.

Stage 5. Install and boot node4

During Stage 5, you install and boot node4, map the cluster and node-management ports from node2 to node4, and verify the node4 installation. If required, you set the FC or UTA/UTA2 configuration on node4 and confirm that node4 has joined quorum. You also relocate node2 NAS data LIFs and non-root aggregates from node3 to node4 and verify the SAN LIFs exist on node4.

Aggregate ownership at the end of Stage 5:

  • Node3 is the home owner and current owner of the aggregates that originally belonged to node1.

  • Node4 is the home owner and current owner of aggregates that originally belonged to node2.

Stage 6. Complete the upgrade

During Stage 6, you confirm that the new nodes are set up correctly and, if the new nodes are encryption-enabled, you configure and set up Storage Encryption or NetApp Volume Encryption. You should also decommission the old nodes and resume the SnapMirror operations.