In my continuing effort to make the adoption of the BES-53248 more streamlined, I figured I would also write a migration guide as I personally had to read the documentation more than once to understand it completely. If you haven’t already checked it out, it might be helpful to first consult my first timers’ guide as the following guide starts with the assumption that your new switches are racked and Inter-Switch Links (ISL) connected and initial configuration has been performed.

Another quick caveat, this is by no means a replacement for the official documentation and the methods below may or may not be supported by NetApp. If you want the official procedure, that is documented here.

Now that we’ve got the above out of the way, I’ll get down to brass tacks. To keep things simple, we’re going to start with a simple two-node switched cluster which should look like this:

You should also have your new BES switched setup as so:

Next step, lets make sure we don’t get a bunch of cases created by kicking off a pre-emptive auto support:

system node autosupport invoke -node * -type all -message MAINT=2h

Elevate your privilege level and confirm all cluster LIFs are set to auto-revert:

set advanced
network interface show -vserver Cluster -fields auto-revert

If everything above looks good, it’s time to login to your second BES which NetApp wants you to name cs2 and configure a temporary ISL back to your first CN1610. Personally I feel the temporary ISL is optional, but can provide a bit of added insurance to your change:

(cs2) # configure
(cs2) (Config)# port-channel name 1/2 temp-isl
(cs2) (Config)# interface 0/13-0/16
(cs2) (Interface 0/13-0/16)# no spanning-tree edgeport
(cs2) (Interface 0/13-0/16)# addport 1/2
(cs2) (Interface 0/13-0/16)# exit
(cs2) (Config)# interface lag 2
(cs2) (Interface lag 2)# mtu 9216
(cs2) (Interface lag 2)# port-channel load-balance 7
(cs2) (Config)# exit

(cs2) # show port-channel 1/2
Local Interface................................ 1/2
Channel Name................................... temp-isl
Link State..................................... Down
Admin Mode..................................... Enabled
Type........................................... Static
Port-channel Min-links......................... 1
Load Balance Option............................ 7
(Enhanced hashing mode)

Mbr     Device/        Port      Port
Ports   Timeout        Speed     Active
------- -------------- --------- -------
0/13    actor/long     10G Full  False        
        partner/long
0/14    actor/long     10G Full  False 
        partner/long
0/15    actor/long     10G Full  False
        partner/long
0/16    actor/long     10G Full  False
        partner/long

At this point, we’re going to disconnect any of the connections to the second CN1610 and run these to the second BES-53248. You may need different cables to ensure they are supported, check Hardware Universe. When you’re done this recabling step, it should look like this:

Next, let’s put the (optional) temporary ISL into play. At your first CN1610, disconnect the cables connected to ports 13-16 and once they’re all disconnected, assuming these cables are supported by both switches, plug them into ports 13-16 on your second BES, so it looks like this:

Now on the second BES-53248, verify the ISL is up:

show port-channel

Assuming the port-channel is up and running, let’s check the health of our cluster LIFs by issuing the following commands at the cluster command line:

network interface show -vserver Cluster -is-home false
network port show -ipspace Cluster

The first command shouldn’t produce any output, give the LIFs time to revert however. The second command, you want to make sure all ports are up and healthy. Once all the LIFs have reverted home, you can now move all the links from the first cluster node as well as removing the temporary ISLs so you end up with this:

Run the same two commands as before:

network interface show -vserver Cluster -is-home false
network port show -ipspace Cluster

Provide everything looks good, you’re free to remove the CN1610s from the rack as they are no longer in use. The final step is to clean up the configuration on your second BES-53248 by tearing down the temporary ISL configuration, done like this:

(cs2) # configure
(cs2) (Config)# deleteport 1/2 all
(cs2) (Config)# exit
(cs2) # write memory

This guide is by no means a replace for the official documentations but rather a companion to it. You should always consult the official documentation, I purposely cut out some of the steps I felt gave the docs a bit of a TL;DR feel but it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t personally run those steps if I were doing the work. This document is only my attempt to clarify the official docs, hopefully it does so for you.