Small Rant About Patching ESXi 6.7 on HPE Servers

[Mason9871]

Regarding patching ESXi 6.7 Hosts on HPE Servers:

Does anyone else think it is insane that HPE expects everyone to manually review patches released by VMware and exclude any that update an out-of-box driver included in the HPE customized ISO (Or else you are technically unsupported)?

It adds a ton of work to patching ESXi Hosts on HPE servers since I can't just apply the VMware-provided "rollup" Bulletin to ensure my Hosts are up to date. 

Do any other manufacturers have this requirement?

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Additional info:

From the HPE vibsdepot page:

http://vibsdepot.hpe.com/customimages/HPE_Unsupported_VMware_Inbox_Drivers.pdf

In some cases, HPE recommends using versions of drivers that conflict with the inbox drivers and they may have different names. The conflicting drivers are specifically not included in the HPE Custom Images listed in the “Impacted HPE Custom Images” column. [...]

For more information see the Deploying and Updating Whitepaper PayMyDoctor at: https://www.hpe.com/h20195/v2/Getdocument.aspx?docname=a00061651enw

From the whitepaper referenced above:

https://www.hpe.com/h20195/v2/Getdocument.aspx?docname=a00061651enw

When installing a VMware patch to a server installed with the HPE Custom Image or that has the HPE recommended versions of drivers and software, special care must be taken to ensure the HPE recommended versions of software and drivers are not overridden by the patch or conflicting drivers are restored after application of the patch.

(heck just read all of "Appendix I" (Starts at PDF Page 49)) for the 10 steps you need to follow every time VMware releases patches.)

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In before all the comments stating "I always install all VMware patches on my HPE servers and haven't had a problem yet". I did that for years too, but once I ran across the above documentation a year ago I started following it. I want to be sure that if I ever need to contact HPE Support about a problem they won't point to the above documentation as a reason to deny helping me.

[Suman_1978]

Hi,

I understand the pain of patching.
As far as I know, there is no other way.

Thank You!

[ksram]

Hi Mason9871,

Good day!

I understand your concern but here Patches may have multiple driver updates / files for multiple components and from Hardware end we can focus on Firmware and Driver compatibility which would needs to be checked.

Unfortunately you may have to follow the same way to check those and update the Patches accordingly.

Thank you

RamKS