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BladeSystem Firmware Update & VMware?

 
chuckk281
Trusted Contributor

BladeSystem Firmware Update & VMware?

Greg was looking for our best practices when updating firmware:

 

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I have been involved only with customers running standalone operating systems when doing firmware updates. I always encourage them to make sure drivers are up to date before the firmware is updated. Now I am faced with my first VMware customer. I know the VMware instances must be migrated to a different server because the updates can't be done online but, what are the best practices for updating items within VMware itself before updating BladeSystem firmware? Are there drivers that should be updated in VMware?

 

When I look at the BL460c G6 I see there are updates available for Qlogic and Broadcom from VMware. Should customers be putting those on before updating the HBAs? What about with ESXi? Is it possible to update the USB stick itself with one specific driver?

 

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Scott provided some advice:

 

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Hi Greg,

 

I can give you a partial answer, which is that you definitely do want to update the VMware drivers first.  You can reference them from the HP download page for the servers (which are usually links to VMware).  I just recently did some fw updates where the customer forgot to put a newer Broadcom driver on the ESX host before updating the firmware.  We couldn't boot ESX after that.  It was easiest for us just to reinstall ESX on the host, add the driver during the installation, and then drop the profile on it rather than try to repair it.  It can certainly be repaired on the fly, but we had some logistical issues that prevented that.

 

Hope this helps.

 

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Any other inputs for Greg. What is your preferred, tried & true method?