Can someone from NetApp comment on these following concerns?
It seems...inconvenient for those who upgraded to ONTAP 6 on F760s to have to revert back to 5.3.6.x in order to upgrade to the F840s. The release of ONTAP 6 couldn't wait until a port to the x86 code was ready for the F840s?
And, also, why won't 5.3.6H1 run on an alpha-based filer? I couldn't test 5.3.6H1 *anywhere* in my environment, except on my new F840 which I needed immediately on a high-visibilty filer. I upgraded and went live with 5.3.6H1 and crossed my fingers that there would be no problems with this new release. Very unnerving. I'm now running with two different ONTAP versions on a group of filers, and hoping I don't run into any inconsistencies across my environment due to this. Again, a port of 5.3.6H1 couldn't have been made for the alpha-based filers coincident with the x86-based F840?
Lastly, could the boot process be made smarter to load the appropriate microkernel, x86 or alpha, if *both* were included on disk? These gyrations to install and download x86- or alpha-based code from *floppy* (slllooowwwww) just seems so...so...kludgy. Probably not, but I'm just asking. Makes a simple head-swap upgrade not so simple.
In summary, in comparison to the usual elegant and quick upgrades and downgrades for previous ONTAP versions, these points above just increased my downtime [0] and decreased my comfort level.
(BTW, the 840 is taking the load of our previous 760 without even breaking a sweat. Yipee!)
[0] Just one of these migrations or ugprade/downgrades takes you far below a 99.999% uptime metric.
Until next time...
The Mathworks, Inc. 508-647-7000 x7792 3 Apple Hill Drive, Natick, MA 01760-2098 508-647-7001 FAX tmerrill@mathworks.com http://www.mathworks.com ---
I'm not from NetApp, but the only reason you needed to downgrade to 5.3.6 before proceeding with a 7xx to 8xx conversion is because you chose to do so now, rather than wait. In the future, 6.0 will be available for the F840. Then you head swap would be a lot simpler.
Bruce
I wrote:
It seems...inconvenient for those who upgraded to ONTAP 6 on F760s to have to revert back to 5.3.6.x in order to upgrade to the F840s. The release of ONTAP 6 couldn't wait until a port to the x86 code was ready for the F840s?
Bruce Sterling Woodcock wrote:
I'm not from NetApp, but the only reason you needed to downgrade to 5.3.6 before proceeding with a 7xx to 8xx conversion is because you chose to do so now, rather than wait. In the future, 6.0 will be available for the F840. Then you head swap would be a lot simpler.
Sorry if I implied that we went through a 5->6->5 process; we didn't. We went from 5.3.4R2D2P2Q7K8... to 5.3.6H1. I was just saying the lack of a coincident release for x86 and alpha filers for 5.3.6H1 *and* 6.x can be inconvenient, annoying, and confusing. [0] I was asking for NetApp's thoughts on why they did it this way. "Rush to market" or "we forked the code base way too long ago to go back now" are perfectly valid answers! ;)
Our upgrade from an F760 (5.3.4R2D2..) to an F840 (5.3.6H1) was straightforward, requiring 15-20 minutes of downtime instead of the usual 2-3. I could have tested 5.3.6H1 on the F840 before putting it into production, but after a couple hours of tracking down previous bugs we've run into and checking them against the 5.3.6H1 release, the risk seemed low, so straight into production with an (internally) untested release the F840 went, in order to relieve the strain on our F760.
risk reward ------------------- ^ Hmmm...now that I drew this picture, I don't know how to indicate which side "wins." Is up good? Or is down like weight scales good? Anyway, so far, so good for us. Reward won.
[0] Remember SGI IRIX 6.2 for these machines, 6.3 for those machines, and 6.4 for yet other machines? Ick. They *finally* cleaned it up when 6.5 was released for all their platforms.
Until next time...
The Mathworks, Inc. 508-647-7000 x7792 3 Apple Hill Drive, Natick, MA 01760-2098 508-647-7001 FAX tmerrill@mathworks.com http://www.mathworks.com ---
----- Original Message ----- From: "Todd C. Merrill" tmerrill@mathworks.com To: toasters@mathworks.com Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2000 1:48 PM Subject: Re: F760/F840, ONTAP 5.3.x/6.x gripes
Sorry if I implied that we went through a 5->6->5 process; we didn't.
Ahh, okay. Still, some people might go through that if they want to rush to the F840.
We went from 5.3.4R2D2P2Q7K8... to 5.3.6H1. I was just saying the lack of a coincident release for x86 and alpha filers for 5.3.6H1 *and* 6.x can be inconvenient, annoying, and confusing. [0] I was asking for NetApp's thoughts on why they did it this way. "Rush to market" or "we forked the code base way too long ago to go back now" are perfectly valid answers! ;)
My guess is both are factors but I really don't know. I certainly don't think it's a fundamental portability issue. It may have some to do with how much confidence testing they were able to do with a given release vs. platform matrix, and they went with what would satisfy most customers in the least amount of time.
Bruce
Todd:
You raise some good points, but the mistake was probably in upgrading to 6.0 before it was made the "Recommended Release". I have a feeling it won't be GA'ed until it is available for at least the 840, but that is just a guess.
Your point about 5.3.6H1 being untest-able in your current environment is very good. We *always* try out all new hardware/software/peripherals in the lab for a while on our "production" platform. That is, new OS'es get tested on replicas of our production H/W. New H/W gets tested on our production OS, etc. It would have been nice if they simply made the x86 version of 5.3.4* work with 840's. This probably is a pipe dream though as the x86 platform of the 200 and 300 series filers is not likely compatible with the 800 series.
As far as boot is concerned, I agree that floppies are no longer the way to go. Some new boot options need to come available, such as (but not limited to) booting off of:
1) Network 2) Network 3) Network 4) CD-ROM 5) Compact flash
Everyone has a network available for booting (or we wouldn't need filers, right?), and almost everyone has a CD burner these days. The CF cards are probably more obscure, but still relatively cheap to get the necessary hardware for writing to them. (Or better yet, the filer could write the current boot image to its own CF drive, eliminating the need for us to have our own CF drive outside the filer -- maybe after a network boot?) *grin*
And yes, almost any NetApp downtime destroys our "five nines" of uptime. Even the brief one required for your seemingly simple upgrade. Thats we don't count "scheduled downtime" against ourselves! =)
-- Jeff
-- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jeff Krueger E-Mail: jeff@qualcomm.com Senior Engineer Phone: 858-651-6709 NetApp Filers / UNIX Infrastructure Fax: 858-651-6627 QUALCOMM, Inc. IT Engineering Web: www.qualcomm.com
On Thu, Oct 12, 2000 at 10:10:49AM -0400, Todd C. Merrill wrote:
Can someone from NetApp comment on these following concerns?
It seems...inconvenient for those who upgraded to ONTAP 6 on F760s to have to revert back to 5.3.6.x in order to upgrade to the F840s. The release of ONTAP 6 couldn't wait until a port to the x86 code was ready for the F840s?
And, also, why won't 5.3.6H1 run on an alpha-based filer? I couldn't test 5.3.6H1 *anywhere* in my environment, except on my new F840 which I needed immediately on a high-visibilty filer. I upgraded and went live with 5.3.6H1 and crossed my fingers that there would be no problems with this new release. Very unnerving. I'm now running with two different ONTAP versions on a group of filers, and hoping I don't run into any inconsistencies across my environment due to this. Again, a port of 5.3.6H1 couldn't have been made for the alpha-based filers coincident with the x86-based F840?
Lastly, could the boot process be made smarter to load the appropriate microkernel, x86 or alpha, if *both* were included on disk? These gyrations to install and download x86- or alpha-based code from *floppy* (slllooowwwww) just seems so...so...kludgy. Probably not, but I'm just asking. Makes a simple head-swap upgrade not so simple.
In summary, in comparison to the usual elegant and quick upgrades and downgrades for previous ONTAP versions, these points above just increased my downtime [0] and decreased my comfort level.
(BTW, the 840 is taking the load of our previous 760 without even breaking a sweat. Yipee!)
[0] Just one of these migrations or ugprade/downgrades takes you far below a 99.999% uptime metric.
Until next time...
The Mathworks, Inc. 508-647-7000 x7792 3 Apple Hill Drive, Natick, MA 01760-2098 508-647-7001 FAX tmerrill@mathworks.com http://www.mathworks.com
-
Bruce Sterling Woodcock -
Jeffrey Krueger -
Todd C. Merrill