What is the recommended practice for upgrading ONTAP in production?

• A. Skip lab testing and upgrade directly
• B. Only upgrade in production
• C. Follow NetApp’s documented upgrade path, test in a lab, back up data, perform staged upgrades, and validate functionality post-upgrade
• D. Use third-party guidelines

Answer: (C)

Upgrading ONTAP in production should follow a disciplined process that minimizes risk and ensures data protection. NetApp provides a documented upgrade path with the required prerequisites, checks, and steps you must follow. Reproducing the upgrade in a lab first lets you verify that your hardware, feature licenses, and integrations (such as replication and backups) work with the new release before touching production.

Back up data before starting so you can recover if anything goes wrong, and perform the upgrade in staged steps rather than all at once. Upgrading one component or node at a time and validating each step helps you catch issues early and preserves service availability during the process. After the upgrade, verify critical functionality: client access, data protection relationships, replication status, backups, failover/failback behavior, and performance.

Avoid skipping lab testing, upgrading directly in production, or following guidelines that aren’t specific to NetApp, as those approaches increase risk and uncertainty.