topic Re: OnBoard Administrator upgrade in BladeSystem - General

OnBoard Administrator upgrade

ROSS HANSON — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:08:06 GMT

My OA is version 2.25. I want to update it. I have looked at many of HP's websites now and all seem to give you several MB of firmware updates regarding all the hardware it seems but I cannot find the site to update only the OA. Am I not understanding something about the OnBoard Administrator?

Re: OnBoard Administrator upgrade

Viveki — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:31:42 GMT

Please see the below URL:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=329290&prodSeriesId=3188465&swItem=MTX-f852f0f3484b4a61a8f6361fde&prodNameId=3188475&swEnvOID=1080&swLang=13&taskId=135&mode=4&idx=0

You need to upgrade step by step. From 2.25 -> 2.32 -> 2.41 -> 2.52 -> 2.6

Re: OnBoard Administrator upgrade

ROSS HANSON — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:46:30 GMT

Thanks for the reply. Looking over the documentation does not say anything about "steps" on the update of the OA. I have also looked at the release notes and did not find the requirements there either. Where is this documentation?

Re: OnBoard Administrator upgrade

JKytsi — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:41:10 GMT

I would like to see it too. Always done it by ILO to latest available first then lates OA. Never seen a problem

Re: OnBoard Administrator upgrade

Cederberg — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:37:57 GMT

i don't see why you need to step upgrade the OA firmware.

You also need to upgrade the BIOS to latest to be safe and the Power Management Controller (requires ILO 1.78 or later).

HP's recomendation BIOS-> ILO -> PMC -> OA

here is a good site for checking which levels you need to be on.. the tab "Compabillity"
http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/blades/components/c-class.html#tab3_content

Re: OnBoard Administrator upgrade

Cederberg — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:41:39 GMT

and the problem with this is that you need to upgrade all servers in a chassi with bios and ILO and so on before you upgrade your OA.

Bacause of the Powercapping feature introduced in ILO ~1.70. there is a ASR bug aswell. If you update to a later bios or a later ilo or both without upgrading the OA there is a possibility that the ASR well reboot the servers at random..

Re: OnBoard Administrator upgrade

Ken Krubsack — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:55:44 GMT

I know we went from 2.31 to 2.52 without stopping at 2.41. But you do want to get the ILO's upgraded first - and I'm hearing that you want to go to v1.79.

Re: OnBoard Administrator upgrade

ROSS HANSON — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:28:05 GMT

Hello everyone and thanks for the replies,

After looking at length, documentation and websites I did upgrade the OA from 2.25 to 2.60. The procedure itself was not a problem however afterwards I am receiving "X"es on my power supplies. I, once again, tried looking for documentation from HP about "step" upgrades but could not find anything regarding this. Also, if it is important to upgrade from 2.25 to 2.31 first, I was unable to find any OA firmware that was before 2.52. I am now calling HP to find out how to get rid of these "X"es on my power supplies.

Re: OnBoard Administrator upgrade

Igor Karasik — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:57:56 GMT

Regarding powwr supplies see this advisory
http://www11.itrc.hp.com/service/cki/docDisplay.do?docLocale=en&docId=emr_na-c01519680-31

Re: OnBoard Administrator upgrade

ROSS HANSON — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:42:49 GMT

I have looked at the advisory and I have been sent 4 more power supplies which when inserted the issue with the "X"es are all gone. We purchase our c7000 in Sept. of 2007 and the advisory tells if you purchased the batteries before March of 2008 the problem with the "X"es may happen. I thank you all for the suggestion and help

Re: OnBoard Administrator upgrade

WFHC-WI — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:01:06 GMT

Hi Ross,

The correct order of updates was posted above:

BIOS (ROM)
iLO
PMC
OA
Virtual Connect

We were able to acquire the preview of a document that details fw upgrade procedures for blade components, but unfortunately it is under an NDA. I understand it will be posted online soon.
Check the release notes for the version of OA fw you plan to use and it should detail what version you can upgrade from.
Good luck!

Re: OnBoard Administrator upgrade

WFHC-WI — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:27:05 GMT

You can now access the Bladesystem firmware best practices guide here:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01857420/c01857420.pdf

Re: OnBoard Administrator upgrade

Bob Firek — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:58:11 GMT

WFH-WI
I was wondering since you had previewed athe document that details firmware upgrade procedures but is under an NDA if you can tell me if the caveat on page 9 still applies:

"If updating from VC firmware versions before 1.34, the VC firmware must be updated before the OA firmware.
For VC firmware versions 1.34 and later, the update order between the OA and VC is not important."

I would guess that if Ross has OA 2.25 then his VC firmware is below 1.34.

I am kinda in the same spot. I'm looking to upgrade my c7000 and my OA is at 2.25 but VC is at 1.32. I'm debating wether to take the advice of the majority of the tech on this forum and follow your proeduce above:
BIOS (ROM)
iLO
PMC
OA
Virtual Connect

Or upgrade my VC first from 1.32 to the latest 2.30 or one rev below 2.10 and then upgrade iLO and OA.

Any advice will be appreciated.

Re: OnBoard Administrator upgrade

ROSS HANSON — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:23:52 GMT

Hello once again

I have updated the OA first because I can reboot this windows box without affecting anything else as far as the blades

I then updated all the ILOs (remember I have 5 blades) because you can reboot the ILOs without affecting the ESX.

When I evacuated all VMs from a blade, I started upgrading the BIOS. From there, it was onto the firmware. Here I downloaded the Windows 2003 Rompaq, expanded, and located the .iso file on my windows PC in order to boot the server, which is in another part of the building.

This all went pretty well, for the most part.
But after updating the firmware (rompaq 8.60)
I received "X"es on my c7000 power supplies.

For whatever reason the firmware did not detect the Power Controller Modules. These were at version .5 and now are at 3.4
I did have to update the PS manually.

I also noticed that the product numbers of all the blades are not the same. We purchased two more blades about 6 months after the first three.

Just giving an update. Still not done with it

Re: OnBoard Administrator upgrade

Bob Firek — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:16:21 GMT

Ross,

Did you upgrade your Virtual Connect yet? If you have upgraded it can you tell me what version you were at and what version you upgrade to, please.

Thanks

Re: OnBoard Administrator upgrade

ROSS HANSON — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:25:46 GMT

The Virtual connect, NO, I have not yet updated that. I was told by HP that the firmware on the blades must be done before I update the VC and I have not completed that task. As far as the version I am currently running, it is firmware version 1.31