Rollout Newest Agents and Utilities without Drivers?

[Tuscani_1]

I would like to rollout the latest agents\utilties to our servers without upgrading the drivers\firmware. Reason being, doing just the agents will allow me to do upgrades whenever without scheduling downtime.

Is this ok, or is it recommended to do all or nothing with working with PSPs?

Thanks!

[Rob Buxton]

Its recommended the entire PSP be upgraded, they're a tested bundle. There are enhancements made to the agents that do seem to require later versions of the drivers.
There have certainly been issues raised in these forums that seem to be because people have just updated the agents only.
If you go the approach of just updating the agents and have problems, the first thing people will suggest will be to install the entire PSP.
Also, the VCA often requires a reboot as well!

[Tuscani_1]

Thanks.. Is pushing the agents and rebooting at a later time ok? Also, I assume there will be a brief loss of network connectivity when the NIC driver updates?

[Rob Buxton]

Yes, NIC Updates can cause an interruption to the network connectivity.
You could defer the reboot, but you'll probably lose some functionality from the agents until you do.

[Tuscani_1]

Thanks. So how do I upgrade a 1000+ servers. I noticed SIM only does one server at a time. I suppose I could run multiple jobs at the same time, but I'd rather not.

[David Claypool]

Not sure what you "noticed," but the way that Version Control works is actually a pull model, not a push model.

That is, HP SIM goes and tells the VCA to retrieve the PSP from the VCRM and execute it. Even if HP SIM were to do this one at a time, the job is a relatively quick one. Once it tells VCA to go do it, HP SIM butts out. Each VCA takes over from there and downloads the PSP from the VCRM and performs the install without any further interaction from HP SIM.

[Tuscani_1]

I did not realize that. I assumed it's only job was to tell you what is and isn't updated and to use SIM to update as needed.