SPP on ESXi 7.0U2 for Gen9

[ISEngineering]

Has anyone figured out the best method to apply the SPP to a ProLiant Gen9 server with ESXi 7.0 w/o using vLCM?  Obviously I can boot to the SPP to update firmware but ESX drivers are posing difficult.  You can't use SUM because it isn't supported for Gen9 on 7.x, you can't use iLO AMP because it doesn't support online updates for Gen9, you can't use vLCM because it doesn't support Gen9 and they pulled all of the 7.0 from the VIBS depot so you can't use VUM.  What is the best method to update the HPE OS drivers and HPE software to the SPP recommend in the recipe?  And no, I can't replace my servers with Gen10, nor can I put my Gen9s in a separate cluster (which wouldn't solve my problem of being able to update Gen9s anyway).  Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

[support_s]

System recommended content:

1. Advisory: (Revision) HPE Network Adapters - HPE Intel Online Firmware Upgrade for VMware Performed Via Service Pack for ProLiant (SPP) Version 2018.03.0 (Or Later) Will Not Be Successful On Certain Systems Running VMware ESXi 6.0 / 6.5 / 6.7

2. HPE VMware ESXi 7.0 U2 Customized Image Release Notes for May 2021

If the above information is helpful, then please click on "Thumbs Up/Kudo" icon.

Thank you for being a HPE community member.

[Jerseyphll]

Did you make any progress with this? We've use G9's too. Trying to use ISUT but that doesnt work if the server is managed by vCenter. I have a call open with Hp but is being bounced between the proliant team and vmware team.. .if i progress it i will update..

[l_lang]

Did you manage to make any progress on this?

[Jerseyphll]

Ive had confirmation from HP that vLCM and iLo amplifier HSM are not supported with G9 server. 

Updates now need to be conducted entirely manual based on the matrix in  SPP-HPE_Custom-Image-vibsdepot-mapping-Gen9-later.pdf.

From an SPP prespecive I beieve the HP custom image 7.0.3 contained all the drivers required and the SPP wasnt necesary except to update FW on boot. Going forward I cant be sure this will be the case.    

[IT_Operations01]

That's basically what I found too.  Everything is manual with the Gen9s.  Boot to the SPP or use ILO AMP to do an offline firmware update.  Version of the SPP should match the latest custom ISO from HPE.  My biggest concern was installing VMware patches and having those overwrite what is integrated into the ISO.  I just ended up creating a custom baseline and removed the conflicting drivers from the baseline.  Did you approach this differently?

[l_lang]

Seems to be the only way to do it. Since 7, patching ESXi with lifecycle manager is a complete mess. At the moment i do not have any experience with vLCM on U3c but I hope that they finally matched to resolve all those problems. Also the documentation on VIBs depot isn't really clear with the ESXi and HPE driver recipes.