Use NetApp Hardware Universe to confirm that your hardware platform and cluster and management switches are supported in the target ONTAP release.

The version of ONTAP that you can upgrade to might be limited based upon your hardware configuration. If your hardware doesn't support the version of ONTAP software that you want to upgrade to, you will need to first add new nodes to your cluster, migrate your data, remove the older nodes and then upgrade your ONTAP software. Follow the procedure to add new nodes to an ONTAP cluster.

Cluster and management switches include the cluster network switches (NX-OS), management network switches (IOS), and reference configuration file (RCF). If your cluster and management switches are supported but are not running the minimum software versions required for the target ONTAP release, upgrade your switches to supported software versions.

Before you upgrade ONTAP, if you have a MetroCluster configuration, use the NetApp Interoperability Matrix Tool to confirm that your MetroCluster IP switches are supported in the target ONTAP release.

Before you upgrade ONTAP, if your cluster is configured for SAN, use the NetApp Interoperability Matrix Tool to confirm that the SAN configuration is fully supported.

All SAN components—​including the target ONTAP software version, host OS and patches, required Host Utilities software, multipathing software, and adapter drivers and firmware—​should be supported.