Unable to clean up after redirecting a Nimble volume collection to a different SAN

[hux]

I have a Nimble in [City1] that originally replicated a volume collection (VC) to #1 Nimble in [City2]. I successfully redirected that VC to #2 Nimble in [City2]. All good so far. My next step is to remove the replicated volumes from #1 Nimble. That's where I'm running into problems.

I tried to delete the VC from #1 Nimble but got the error, "Before you can delete volume collections, you must disassociate any associated volumes." However, I can't figure out how to do that. For example, if I go to one of those volumes,  'EDIT' is grayed out, as is everything on the 'More Actions' drop-down menu.

If I go to the VC screen, the only option that seems relelvant is 'PROMOTE', which says:

"Promote" brings an entire replica set online as volumes. You would promote a volume collection to recover from the failure of an upstream replication partner. Where possible, the preferred alternative is to log into the upstream replication partner and perform a handover. 

But that's not what I want to do. I just want to delete all these replicated volumes.

Also, this page from HPE says:

Important: You should only use promotion when the original array is unavailable.

So, what's the correct way to do this?

[For reference, both Nimbles are model CS7000, running software version 5.0.10.100-940148-opt. Yes, I know I need to upgrade!]

[Sheldon Smith]

Been a bit since I looked at cleaning up. As I recall, first you edit the volume collection and remove the unwanted pairs.

[hux]

Unfortunately, that looks like a no-go. That is, I already edited the VC at the source, in order to redirect things to the other Nimble. And I can't edit it on the Nimble where I want to remove the replicated volumes, because I get thIs error:

You cannot edit volume collection replicas. You must either edit the source volume collection or promote the volume collection replica and then edit it.

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It's kind of looking like I actually do have to use "Promote", even though the error I mentioned in the previous post implies that I shouldn't.

[Sheldon Smith]

Have you talked to Nimble Support?

[Thomas_Lam_HK]

You can only able to edit the volume collection configuration on upstream array, and wait for the VC setting replicate to downstream array.

The proper procedure is to edit the VC (at upstream array GUI) to remove the volume, once such setting is replicated to downstream, claim the replica (offline-volume) via GUI at downstream then remove the volume.

If it doesn't work, just call support.

[hux]

@Thomas_Lam_HK 
claim the replica (offline-volume) via GUI at downstream

Can you explain how to do this, specifically? There's no 'claim' option that I can find in the GUI.

[hux · Accepted solution]

It turns out that 'Promote' is the correct option in this scenario.

I used the following process:

1. On the screen for the volume collection in question, do Actions -> Promote. This causes the vollume collection to become owned by this Nimble and brings all of its volumes online.
2. Go to each volume, do Edit and confirm that nothing appears in the 'Access' screen.
3. Offline and delete the volume.
4. Once all volumes are deleted, delete the volume collection.