topic Re: Upgrading C7000 chassis in BladeSystem - General

Upgrading C7000 chassis

Stu77 — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 21:13:57 GMT

Hi Everyone,

I am fairly familiar with blade operations etc but they scary bit is the firmware upgrade.

The C7000 is redundant in terms of add in cards at the back. Everything is N+1 (Ethernet, OA etc)

From what I have read, this means I should be able to do one side of the blade centre, followed by the other. Should be able to do it non disruptively.

Re: Upgrading C7000 chassis

Emil Velez — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 00:45:06 GMT

Yes.. Rememer you have redundant OAs

and we us the term Enclosure not chassis. Initially it took me a while to get used to that too.

see http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/blades/components/c-class.html#tab3_content

I assume you have the smartupdate ISO

This manual below covers firmware upgrades

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01215727/c01215727.pdf

Re: Upgrading C7000 chassis

The Brit — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 14:27:30 GMT

One thing to remember Stu.

If you are using Virtual Connect, the failover time between modules takes about 20-25 seconds during which time they will not pass traffic between them.

It is critical that you have your server NICs teamed, (one to left-hand module, and one to right), in this case the network failover is pretty much instantaneous. If you do not have you teaming set up correctly, then you may experience a loss of communication, which your servers may, or may not, survive (OS, App and/or config dependent)

Dave.

Re: Upgrading C7000 chassis

Proliant VMS San Mgrs — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 22:02:58 GMT

What blades? What ILO / BIOS? What OS (and 32bit or 64 bit architecture)? What interconnect devices (and firmware for each)?

If this is really old gear, (with really old firmware) you will see disruptions.

Best to consult with HP if this is a production environment. You will need to schedule downtime in certain situations.

If Windows servers: (again, which OS?)

Is HP MPIO and HP MPIO manager correctly configured, and recent (and working)?

What version of NCU (adapter teaming)?