ONTAP 9.4 is now available, so that means the TRs need to get a refresh.

Here’s what I’ve done for FlexGroup in ONTAP 9.4…

New Tech Report!

First, I moved the data protection section of the best practices TR (TR-4571) into its own dedicated backup and data protection TR, which can be found here:

TR-4678: Data Protection and Backup – FlexGroup volumes

Why? Well, that section is going to grow larger and larger as we add more data protection and backup functionality, so it made sense to proactively create a new one.

Updated TRs!

TR-4557 got an update of mostly just what’s new in ONTAP 9.4. That TR is a technical overview, which is intended just to give information on how FlexGroups work. The new feature payload for FlexGroup volumes in ONTAP 9.4 included:

QoS minimums and Adaptive QoS

FPolicy and file audit

SnapDiff support

TR-4571 is the best practices TR and got a brunt of the updates. Included in the TR (aside from details about new features), I added:

More detailed information about high file count environments and directory structure

More information about maxdirsize limits

Information on effects of drive failures

Workarounds for lack of NFSv4.x ACL support

Member volume count considerations when dealing with small and large files

Considerations when deleting FlexGroup volumes (and the volume recovery queue)

Clarifications on requirements for available space in an aggregate

System Manager support updates

Most of these updates came from feedback and questions I received. If you have something you want to see added to the TRs, let me know!