Decommissioning a Nasuni Edge Appliance (Filer), NMC, or File IQ Server

  • Updated on Mar 3, 2026
  • Published on Dec 16, 2024
  • 6 minute(s) read
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Introduction

This document is intended to guide you in decommissioning a Nasuni Edge Appliance, NMC, or File IQ server. A Nasuni Edge Appliance is sometimes referred to as a “Filer”.

Caution: This procedure is only to be used when permanently decommissioning a Nasuni Edge Appliance or NMC. No recovery is possible.

Warning: This is NOT part of the disaster recovery or recovery process. If you are performing a disaster recovery or recovery process, do not use this procedure.

Warning: If you decommission a Nasuni Edge Appliance or NMC, all associated data is lost, and no recovery is possible.

Decommissioning the Nasuni Edge Appliance or NMC

Tip: If the appliance is a volume owner and cannot be powered on, you must go through the Recovery process to recover the appliance and then delete the volumes that it owns. If this is not possible for some reason (such as not having all the encryption keys), request Nasuni Support to decommission the Edge Appliance through the NOC.

To decommission the Nasuni Edge Appliance or NMC, follow these steps:

  1. If the NEA is offline, not bootable, or otherwise inaccessible, proceed to step 4.

  2. Using either the NMC or Nasuni Edge Appliance UI, record this information:

    1. The Name of the Edge Appliance or NMC.

    2. The Serial Number used to create the Edge Appliance or NMC.

  3. If decommissioning an Edge Appliance, use either the NMC or Nasuni Edge Appliance UI to remove all data from the Edge Appliance by performing the following steps:

    1. Delete any shares and exports.

    2. Ensure that no unprotected data remains in the cache by following these steps:

      1. Determine if any unprotected data remains in the cache.
        On the Edge Appliance UI, on the Home page, examine the “New Data in Cache (not yet protected)” chart. There should be no unprotected data.
        On the NMC, on the Unprotected Files page, there should be no unprotected data.

      2. If there is unprotected data, perform a snapshot to protect the unprotected data.
        On the NMC, on the Volumes page, click Take snapshot.

      3. If you took a snapshot, continue with step i above to ensure that there is no unprotected data.

    3. Delete the volumes that this Edge Appliance owns (both local and shared volumes).
      When you schedule a volume for deletion, the volume is removed from the display immediately, but a background process deletes the volume, and this can take some time to complete. For this reason, you should not shut down the Edge Appliance virtual machine or hardware appliance until you receive a notification that the volume was fully deleted. The notification is of the form “Volume delete of <volume name> completed.”
      Similarly, if the background process does not complete successfully, the NOC does not allow you to decommission the appliance. This is by design to ensure that the volume has been definitely deleted before decommissioning the appliance.
      Warning: If you delete a volume, the data in the volume is lost and cannot be recovered. No other Nasuni Edge Appliance is able to access that volume.

    4. If this Edge Appliance shares volumes from another Edge Appliance (remote volumes), take a snapshot of each remote volume, verify that each snapshot has been completed, then disconnect each remote volume. See Disconnecting Remote Volumes.

This step empties the cache. The “New Data in Cache” chart should show no unprotected data.

  1. Log in to portal.nasuni.com. Click Manage Serial Numbers.

    The Serial Numbers page appears.

  2. Find the serial number for the Edge Appliance or NMC that you want to decommission.

  3. From the three-dot menu, click Decommission.

  4. To decommission an Edge Appliance or NMC, type “Decommission Appliance” in the text box, then click “Decommission”.

    Warning: If you decommission a Nasuni Edge Appliance or NMC, no recovery is possible.

  5. The Edge Appliance or NMC is decommissioned.
    If you refresh the Serial Numbers page on portal.nasuni.com, the Edge Appliance or NMC serial number no longer appears in the list.
    The serial number for this Edge Appliance or NMC is reset for reuse.

  6. If the Edge Appliance or NMC is running as a virtual machine, perform these steps:

    1. Launch the virtual machine management console.

    2. Shut down or power down the virtual machine.

Decommissioning a File IQ Server

To decommission a File IQ server, follow these steps:

  1. If the File IQ server is offline, not bootable, or otherwise inaccessible, proceed to step 6.

  2. Use the NMC to disconnect volumes from the File IQ appliance.

  3. Use the NMC to unassign NEAs from the File IQ appliance.

  4. Using either the NMC or the File IQ server UI, record this information:

    1. The Name of the File IQ server.

    2. The Serial Number used to create the File IQ server.

  5. Use either the NMC or the File IQ server UI to make sure that the Reporting files have been protected to the cloud:

    1. Ensure that no unprotected data remains in the cache by following these steps:

      1. Determine if any unprotected data remains in the cache.
        On either the NMC or the File IQ server UI, on the Home page, examine the “New Data in Cache (not yet protected)” chart. There should be no unprotected data.

      2. If there is unprotected data, perform a snapshot to protect the unprotected data.
        On the NMC, on the Volumes page, click Take snapshot.

      3. If you took a snapshot, continue with step i above to ensure that there is no unprotected data.

This step empties the cache. The “New Data in Cache” chart should show no unprotected data.

  1. Log in to portal.nasuni.com. Click Manage Serial Numbers.

  2. The Serial Numbers page appears.

  3. Find the serial number for the File IQ server that you want to decommission.

  4. Click Decommission.

  5. To decommission a File IQ server, type “Decommission Appliance” in the text box, then click “Decommission Appliance”.
    Warning: If you decommission a File IQ server, no recovery is possible.

  6. The File IQ server is decommissioned.
    If you refresh the Serial Numbers page, the File IQ server serial number no longer appears in the list.
    The serial number for this File IQ server is reset for reuse.

  7. If the File IQ server is running as a virtual machine, perform these steps:

    1. Launch the virtual machine management console.

    2. Shut down or power down the virtual machine.

  8. (Optional) If you have File IQ database backups configured, you can manually delete them in the cloud.

Disconnecting Remote Volumes

You can disconnect from a volume at a remote location.

Caution: Disconnecting a Nasuni Edge Appliance from a remotely accessible volume causes all shares and exports of the remotely accessible volume to be deleted from the Nasuni Edge Appliance.

Caution: Disconnecting from a volume deletes any unprotected data in the cache. To protect recently changed data, you can take an on-demand snapshot before disconnecting from the volume.

Note: For volumes with an SMB (CIFS) share, an NFS export, or an FTP/SFTP directory, you must remove the share, export, or directory before you can disconnect from the volume.

To disconnect remote volumes using the NMC, follow these steps:

  1. On the Volume List on the Volumes page, find the remote volume that you want to disconnect.

  2. Click Disconnect   . The Disconnect Volume dialog box appears.

  3. Type Disconnect Volume in the Confirmation Phrase text box.

  4. Click Disconnect Volume to disconnect from the remote volume.

Caution: Disconnecting a Nasuni Edge Appliance from a remotely accessible volume causes all shares and exports of the remotely accessible volume to be deleted from the Nasuni Edge Appliance.

Caution: Disconnecting from a volume deletes any unprotected data in the cache. To protect recently changed data, you can take an on-demand snapshot, then disconnect from the volume.

Alternatively, to exit this screen without disconnecting from the volume, click Close.

After Decommissioning

If this is a hardware Edge Appliance, and you want to re-use the hardware as an Edge Appliance, after performing the decommission procedure, you should perform the Field Reinstallation procedure, as described in Field Reinstallation.

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