NOS 2.0.4.0 RC is available in InfoSight

[amirul93]

Nimble OS 2.0.4.0 is now available in Infosight. please note, this is Release Candidate only and the site strictly states "Please note this release is made available for production workloads and has gone through extensive internal testing and our customer Beta program. However, Nimble OS 2.0.4.0 is not considered General Availability until we meet our stringent GA requirements for run time and availability on a significant install-base of customer systems. As such, this release is available only to customer systems that have been explicitly assessed, approved, and white-listed by Nimble Support."

For production workloads, its probably best waiting for the GA release.

Another word of caution is for those environments using CommVault Simpana 9 & 10. The bug description is as follows:

"The Nimble library (.dll file) shipping with Simpana 9 and 10 are not compatible with NOS 2.0.x due to some API changes. The new .dll file will be shipped in future updates of Simpana 9 and 10 in order to support NOS 2.0.x."

For those able to upgrade their systems to this version and have a play, let us know what you think of Groups and Pools!

[Nick_Dyer]

Nice post Amirul!

Whilst it's true that software relating to Nimble OS 2.0 (2.0.4.0 to be precise) has made it's way onto the Infosight Downloads page, the available software mostly consists of the new Nimble Windows Toolkit & Nimble Connection Manager for VMware. The NOS 2.0 firmware itself is only available through discussions with Support at the current time. This is because we are in Release Candidate stage with the software rather than Generally Available.

Nimble OS 2.0 is fully production ready having gone through stringent customer beta programs and internal QA testing, and is on a controlled rollout to end users (rather than going "big bang" to the world). This allows us to catch any issues on a case by case basis and ensure the high quality of software engineering & backend support is still maintained to you the customer. Good candidates for this stage are UAT, DR or non-"mission critical" production environments (or indeed a UAT, NFR or demo environment if you're a Nimble partner).

If you are interested in having your environment whitelisted to be part of the rollout please contact your friendly local Nimble SE and/or Nimble Support, who will be able to advise further.

Upgrading to Nimble OS 2.0 is non-disruptive just like every firmware upgrade. One caveat is you MUST be on Nimble OS 1.4.7 to be able to upgrade to 2.0.

However please note: DO NOT upgrade your Nimble Windows Toolkit to 2.0.4.0 or install the new Nimble Connection Manager for VMware if you are still running Nimble OS 1.4.x, as they are not compatible with one another.

[jliu79]

Thanks and what's new in this 2.0 version? It sounds like a major upgrade judging by the version number. I'll probably give it a try on our DR site.

[Nick_Dyer]

Hey Jason,

2.0 encompasses a lot of new features and enhancements for Nimble, but the big three are:

1. Scale-out technology to allow up to four arrays to be put in a virtual group for load balancing and distribution of data and performance.
2. Nimble Connection Manager software for Windows - which means the Windows iSCSI Initiator doesn't have to be used anymore (along with standard Windows MPIO).
3. Nimble Connection Manager software for VMware - which allows for Multipath and Queue depth autoconfiguration within VMware (ie no more scripts setting IOPS=0 & Bytes=0). Note: only for VMware Enterprise Plus customers.

I've blogged about point one here, and i'll be doing more blogs on the other features in the next few weeks.

Hope this helps!

[mark_david_harr]

Hi Amirul,

               Love to try the latest OS on our CS460G array. It'll save me time later updating new Windows guest to NPM 2.0 too. The current array is the building block for our new VM infrastructure and is getting ready for a migration from NetApp. The arrays in question is AF-102225 and AF-102550. The latter is not plumbed in yet. Basically our system isn't in production yet so an ideal candidate for further soak testing.

Cheers

[rfenton4]

Hey Mark,

Hope your well !?

Just pinged you directly with regards to requirements for running NOS 2.0.4 Release Candidate. 

Speak to you shortly

Cheers

Rich

[jliu79]

So I contacted the support for the 2.0 but was told since I have snapshots verification enabled on some of the volumes which make the snapshots writeable, I can't install the new 2.0 OS as there's some kind of bug needs too be fixed. I'll need to wait for 2.05 so the bug can be fixed.