A Quick Guide to Using/Testing Aggregate Relocate (ARL)

A quick guide to this easy to use but powerful feature of Clustered Data ONTAP (CDOT)!

Introduction

Aggregate Relocate (ARL) is used to non-disruptively move ownership of aggregates between CDOT controllers in a HA pair.

Requirements

Clustered Data ONTAP 8.2+

Not running any of: takeover, giveback, shutdown, another ARL operation, disk ownership changes, aggregate or volume configuration operations, storage controller replacement, Data ONTAP upgrade or revert.

Procedure

Variables:
$AGGRNAME = Name of the aggregate being moved
$SOURCENODE = Node that currently owns the aggregate
$DESTINATIONNODE = Not the aggregate is going to be relocated to

1) Pre-Checks: No SnapMirrors are currently initializing on the aggregate to be relocated ::>

snapmirror show -status !Idle

Note: Burt 645397 “Transition destination volume becomes restricted during ARL operations in CDOT, if initializing at the time of ARL operation.”

2) Checks Part 1: The aggregate has HA-policy as SFO, is not a root aggregate, and currently owned by the source node ::>

storage aggregate show -aggregate $AGGRNAME -fields ha-policy, root, owner-name

Note: To enable SFO if it is not already enabled ::>

storage failover modify -enabled true -node $SOURCENODE

3) Checks Part 2: Verify the aggregate’s status is normal ::>

storage aggregate show -aggregate $AGGRNAME -fields raidstatus

4) Run aggregate relocation ::>

storage aggregate relocation start -node $SOURCENODE -destination $DESTINATIONNODE -aggregate-list $AGGRNAME

5) To check/confirm the ARL has completed successfully ::>

storage aggregate relocation show

And to confirm the aggregate is indeed on a new node ::>

storage aggregate show -aggregate $AGGRNAME -fields ha-policy, root, owner-name