HP c7000 Blade OA firmware update issues/concerns *URGENT*

[COPATOWN]

So, I am in a bit of a bind... I am a day into a VM upgrade and host upgrade week and after calling HP enterprise support I now have mixed messages about how to update my bladesystem OA. part of this upgrade is adding 3 Gen9 blades to the enclosure, only the Onboard Administrator version is currently 3.31 (and everything else is likely circa the same time period of being behind on updates/firmware).

At first I tried just downloading the most recent SPP and running that. it found the enclosure, and even stated it wanted to update 3.31 to 4.50 (also even found the ILOs needing updating, the blades range from Gen1s to Gen8s) with a green 'ready' box. feeling this was too easy I called support. The guy on the phone claimed that the HP SUM tool cannot update the OAs in the blade system and that I must download every revision between 3.31 and 4.50 and install them one by one through the Onboard Administrator's firmware update interface in it's web GUI.

now... I only have ONE Onboard Administrator module in this bladesystem (not my choice, it was that way when I got here) so, the guy on the phone said I have no choice but to power down all servers and manually update each firmware patch, and keep rebooting the OA until current. I'm running a VM cluster out of the servers in the bladesystem, so... if this is true that means I need to totally shut down VMware 100% and all my hosts and hope to the tech gods everything starts back up from cold cleanly.

Is this true? and is there a good suggested path to follow? it's frustrating that the Support Update Manager program seems to believe it can happily do all the updates on its own if I dare to hit the 'deploy' button waiting me, while the enterprise support agent claims that the Support Update Manager CANNOT update the OA module firmware version at all and I must manually do it from the web GUI of the OA interface one revision at a time until I finally hit 4.50.

As we're already paying hours to the Vendor contractor assisting and giving advise from the VM side of things I need to make a decision yesterday and decide if I'm scheduling downtime tomorrow and turning it all off to update the OA the way the phone support guy said, or if I have any other options available to me, especially with the limitation of only having one OA module.

please help....

[Torsten.]

You should update the servers driver first, then BIOS, ILO, etc. then OA and interconnects.

You can update your OA in a single step, save the config before starting.

The problem is, G1 and Gen9 are not supported in the same enclosure, this config is not tested, see

http://h20564.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=mmr_kc-0100204-12

[COPATOWN]

We're retiring the Gen1's anyway, so I can stage, or adjust things (thanks by the way for that compatabilty table! I wasn't aware of some of that info) Another option I suppose... is I could see if we can pick up another OA module, but the question with that is, can you just hotswap in a second Onboard Administrator module without having to power down or reboot anything? so there is no need to basically shut down the entire company since I'll otherwise have to fully shut down the VM environment if there isn't a way to be able to perform these updates without having to shut everything down due to the current limitation of only one OA module installed

[Torsten.]

no need to shutdown or reboot something while updating oa. a second oa will sync settings and firmware - you will be asked by the system how to proceed. you likely have to aet the ip address.

[COPATOWN]

So was phone support wrong when they stated that applying firmware updates to the OA would make the enclosure reboot? (because if that's false, or if the enclosure will allow the blades to continue running while the OA restarts or whatever then they got me all stressed out over nothing) or is that only in the instance where I'd have two OA modules present vs. the current scenario where I only have one OA (the upgrade path will be decommissioning the BL460c Gen1s, then updating firmwares while the VMs are spread across the remaining running Gen6, Gen7 and Gen8s, then the Gen9s will be able to be added, and the Gen6 and 7 retired as well to leave mostly current blades, so I'm not worried about updating past the ability to use Gen1s anymore as they're a few hours of work away from going into the recyling bin)

I'm basically trying to make the call right now how the rest of the upgrade is going and if we're having to do a full shutdown or if the phone support tech was just giving misconstrued information and I can still do all this without a full shutdown/reboot of the enclosure and it's blades

[Torsten. · Accepted solution]

>> So was phone support wrong when they stated that applying firmware updates to the OA would make the enclosure reboot?

It depends on what enclosure means.

The servers keep running, the interconnects too.

But during the OA reboot you loose the control over power/cooling control, this means fans may spin full speed, you are unable to power on a server that time etc, because the enclosure controller (OA) is rebooting - you only have 1.

[COPATOWN]

Well in that case... You rock, I am coming to these forums from now on first, and your responses have enabled me to feel safe keeping my upgrade schedule on track and should still hit the original completion estimate.

Biggest concern I had was basically if the OA reboots will it knock my ESXi hosts offline or power them down, and if the interconnects and blades themselves keep functioning, I can deal with exessive fan noise for a few until the OA comes back.

Seriously, thank you thank you thank you.