Hello all,
on the recent HPE Customer Notice a00007847en_us about "Update to Smart Array Firmware Version 5.04 to Correct Intermittent Controller Lockup Issues", there is an important statement about HPE Smart Array Firmware update's procedure to follow to ensure that new Firmware is activated with all controller cache's data already properly flushed:
"HPE strongly recommends that this firmware update be performed in an offline environment.
If this firmware update is performed online, ensure a graceful shutdown or restart is performed in order to flush all data from the controller cache before the new firmware is activated.
Abruptly rebooting the system while there is data in cache might result in data loss."
Since I know abrupt power off events but I'm not aware of any abrupt reboot events (if a system goes down due to an abrupt power outage it should then stay down)...does the recommendation above mean that if I'm going to do the online Firmware update procedure instead of the suggested offline one (which I presume should be performed using the latest HPE SPP 2017.04.0) it will be sufficient to ensure that the physical Server is gracefully rebooted (through the OS reboot, as example) immediately after the Firmware update patch executable (which ran at OS level) exits?
In other terms, while offline Firmware update procedure is recommended, if the online one if performed with a consequent proper graceful (planned) OS reboot, that will be good and safe enough?
I'm not an HPE Employee
IMHO the meaning is to do a proper shutdown (or reboot) instead of let's say a linux "reboot -f" or simply press and hold the power button to ensure the shutdown is not bypassed.
A linux forced reboot could be this "abrupt reboot events.", I think.
Hope this helps!
Regards
Torsten.
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OK, so considering Linux as the OS, should a shutdown -r now or just a straight reboot (without force -f option [*]) be sufficient? the OS will shutdown/reboot properly enough (not abruptly) and then on the next power-on phase the Firmware should be updated flawlessly.
That's what I thought too.
Running OS in my case is Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 so I'm trying to understand if I can avoid to go through the offline mode via the newly released SPP, at least for this very specific case.
[*] -f / --force option is valid on halt, poweroff and reboot...and it means:
-f, --force
Force immediate halt, power-off, reboot. Do not contact the init
system.
I'm not an HPE Employee