Active IQ Upgrade Advisor is the designated NetApp tool for creating a comprehensive, customized action plan for an ONTAP upgrade. It analyzes the specific cluster's configuration, telemetry data, and known issues, including security vulnerabilities highlighted in bulletins. It then generates a detailed, step-by-step plan that includes pre-upgrade checks, the recommended target ONTAP version to remediate the security issue, and post-upgrade actions. This provides the customer with a complete and tailored action plan, minimizing risk and ensuring a successful update.

A. Use the Interoperability Matrix Tool.

The IMT is a critical tool for verifying component compatibility (e.g., host OS, switches) during the planning phase, but it does not generate the overall action plan itself.

B. Review the ONTAP 9 product page.

The product page contains general marketing and feature information. It is not a tool for creating a specific, customized upgrade plan for an existing system.

C. Download the target version and do a pre-check.

This is a step in executing the upgrade plan. The task is to provide the plan, which must be created before downloading software or running validation checks.

1. NetApp Active IQ Documentation

"What is Upgrade Advisor": "Upgrade Advisor simplifies your ONTAP upgrade planning by providing a customized upgrade plan for your clusters. This plan is based on your upgrade goals and data from your systems that is collected by Active IQ." This confirms its role as the primary tool for generating an action plan.

2. NetApp Technical Report TR-4781

"ONTAP Upgrade Best Practices and Introduction to Automated Nondisruptive Upgrades": Section 2

"Upgrade Planning

" explicitly states: "NetApp Active IQ Upgrade Advisor is the recommended method for planning your ONTAP upgrade. Upgrade Advisor provides a customized upgrade plan for each of your clusters."

3. ONTAP 9 Documentation Center

"Upgrade ONTAP software": The first step listed in the upgrade workflow is "Plan the upgrade." The documentation guides users to use Active IQ Upgrade Advisor for this purpose

stating

"You should use Active IQ Upgrade Advisor to generate a plan for your upgrade."