XDP SnapMirror 9.4 to 9.2 and 9.2 to 9.4 Does Work Just Not Supported

I took exception to something in Justin Parisi’s blog post:

In it he wrote -
“...If you are running ONTAP 9.4, XDP SnapMirror will work across all prior ONTAP 9.x releases except for ONTAP 9.2...”
That tripped my fake news detector. If you think about it, it makes zero sense that 9.4 to 9.1 works, but 9.4 to 9.2 doesn’t, and then 9.4 to 9.3 does - XDP SnapMirror is such an awesome and powerful technology, why would it just decide to stop working for 9.2!?

Image: The exception I took exception to

This is what he should have written:
“...If you are running ONTAP 9.4, XDP SnapMirror will be supported across all prior ONTAP 9.x releases except for ONTAP 9.2...”

In the screenshots below is proof of sorts to show it does indeed work for 9.2 to 9.4 and vice versa.

Image: XDP SnapMirror from 9.2 to 9.4 works (just not supported)

Image: XDP SnapMirror from 9.4 to 9.2 works (just not supported)

In the official table below, I think the language is wrong; instead of “Will work with these previous releases” it should be “is guaranteed to work and supported with these previous releases”. Pernickety me?

Image: SnapMirror XDP Release Interoperability

APPENDIX: CLI

In case my proof images go missing, I have put the CLI output below:


clu1::> version
NetApp Release 9.2P4: Tue May 01 19:23:51 UTC 2018

clu1::> snapmirror show
                                                                       Progress
Source            Destination Mirror  Relationship   Total             Last
Path        Type  Path        State   Status         Progress  Healthy Updated
----------- ---- ------------ ------- -------------- --------- ------- --------
clu2v1:vol2 XDP  clu1v1:vol2_DR Snapmirrored Idle    -         true    -

clu1::> snapmirror list-destinations
                                                  Progress
Source             Destination         Transfer   Last         Relationship
Path         Type  Path         Status Progress   Updated      Id
----------- ----- ------------ ------- --------- ------------ ---------------
clu1v1:vol1 XDP   clu2v1:vol1_DR Idle  -         -            678c478c-b9f2-11e8-ba81-000c299131c0

clu1::> qtree show -qtree !""
Vserver    Volume        Qtree        Style        Oplocks   Status
---------- ------------- ------------ ------------ --------- --------
clu1v1     vol1          qtree1       unix         enable    normal
clu1v1     vol2_DR       qtree2       unix         enable    readonly
2 entries were displayed.



clu2::> version
NetApp Release 9.4: Fri Jun 08 22:50:12 UTC 2018

clu2::> snapmirror show
                                                                       Progress
Source            Destination Mirror  Relationship   Total             Last
Path        Type  Path        State   Status         Progress  Healthy Updated
----------- ---- ------------ ------- -------------- --------- ------- --------
clu1v1:vol1 XDP  clu2v1:vol1_DR Snapmirrored Idle    -         true    -

clu2::> snapmirror list-destinations
                                                  Progress
Source             Destination         Transfer   Last         Relationship
Path         Type  Path         Status Progress   Updated      Id
----------- ----- ------------ ------- --------- ------------ ---------------
clu2v1:vol2 XDP   clu1v1:vol2_DR Idle  -         -            3ea380b6-b9f3-11e8-b19e-000c293eecae

clu2::> qtree show -qtree !""
Vserver    Volume        Qtree        Style        Oplocks   Status
---------- ------------- ------------ ------------ --------- --------
clu2v1     vol1_DR       qtree1       unix         enable    readonly
clu2v1     vol2          qtree2       unix         enable    normal
2 entries were displayed.


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