Adding BL460c G7 to C7000 chassis (esxi4.1)

[Mel Nugent]

I have a c7000 chassis with 4x BL680c G5 blades and 1x BL460c G6 running ESXi 4.1. The chassis also has a BL860c running VMS. There are 2x Cisco MDS 9124eand 4x Cisco Catalyst Blade Switch 3020.

I want to add a new BL460c G7 to the chassis and install ESXi 4.1 and add to the exising vmware cluster. Will I have to update the OA before I add the new blade and is there any paticular order to update the firmwares in.

OA firmware is current 3.21

BL680c are on I17 03/02/2010   (think 2011.05.02 is latest)

BL460c G6 is on I24 09/02/2010   (think 2011.05.05 is latest)

Not sure on BL860c rom version

Thanks

[Cederberg]

The BL460c g7 is supported from OA version 3.10 so your safe there..

here is an old chart for a bit older firmwares in the older style of release sets 9.10 , 9.20 and 9.30

ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softlib2/software1/doc/p616879734/v73517/ReleaseSet_Compatibility_Table-9.30-4.pdf

[Mel Nugent]

Thanks for the info. I thought I remembered someone telling me that the order of updates on these was important. That sound right?

[Cederberg]

Yes thats right to avoid compatibility issues. I can't find that dokument i have read about this right now but i belive it's bios (All servers), ilo (all servers) and OA. probably a few threads on the forum talking about this..

[Steven Clementi]

OA Firmware 3.21 is fairly old now.  Current firmware is 3.56.  v3.55 introduced support for the Gen8 Blades and 3.56 fixes an issue found in 3.55 .  While not absolutely necessary, might as well get things up to date if you are are futzing around with firmware anyway.

Try out the new HP SUM.  " http://h18013.www1.hp.com/products/servers/service_packs/en/index.html ".  It takes care of the order for you when updating the chassis.

If you prefer the manual route, also make sure you update the ilo's first to a supported level for the OA firmware you are planning on going to.

The current iLo2 firmware 2.09 and iLo3 is at 1.28.

[Mel Nugent]

Thanks Steven,

I'll try the HP SUM. My ILO are 2.01 at the moment. Integrity blade is 2.17.

When you say the HPSUM will take care of the order. Do you mean if I run it from my PC and select the OA, server and ILO ip addresses? Or do you mean boot each server from the ISO via USB key?

I get a "couldn't resolve host name" when I add the esx hosts, even though I imported via IP range and it resolved the names OK.

[Server-Support]

ok, what about with the following firmware update order:

1. Blade iLO's
2. Server BIOS
3. Network / storage controllers in each of the servers
4. Onboard Admin
5. Virtual Connect
6. The chassis (or the enclosure).

would that makes sense or when doing the firmware update using the HP SUM, the order above is automatically followed to avoid the networking outage for the production VMs ?