Flaw with firmware update through Oneview Intel Nic Firmware

[Cederberg]

Hi.
The Versions used are HPE oneview 9.30, HPE O4VC 11.6, ILO5 before update 3.08 (after 3.10).
We are evaluating using VMware vLCM with HPE Oneview for VMware vCenter and HPE Oneview. While testing i think i discovered a flaw in HPE Oneviews handling of firmware updates on devices with more than one updateable firmware. In this case it was a 562FLR-SFP+ adapter in our test ESX a DL380 gen10. It has two updatable firmwares (SingleNVMVer and ROM). Oneview and HPE ILO only lists the SingelNVMVer versionnumber for the device.

So when we tried updating the firmware through vLCM and changed the SPP from 2024.09.00.00 to 2025.01.00.00 Oneview only reported two firmwares needed updating, BIOS and ILO.

As we are evaluating the function of the products I booted on the SPP2025.01.00.00 iso after vLCM with its oneview integration said that the server was compliant. And it detected that another firmware update was needed. and as i mentined above it was for the 562FLR-SFP+ adapter. The ROM part in the screenshot below is in need of updating.

As i also mentioned above there seems to be multiple firmwares on the networkcard and the one that ILO and Oneview is reporting is the SingelNVMVer 11.1.7 and based on that i guess it decides that the firmware is not needed even though the ROM side of the Firmware has an update in the SPP when updating through Oneview (vLCM). From memory I think many PCIe devices also have similar setups where there are more than one firmware for the cards. at least the Qlogic FC-HBA does.

In the Case for the Network card in the test server it seems that the previous SPP contained the firmware component HPE describes as 1.31 and SPP2025.01.00.00 contains 1.32. In the links below you can see in the release notes what the above printscreen shows that the SingelNVMver is unchanged but the Rom/orom is changed between the releases. From what i can understand the only change is a new UEFI Driver but Oneview should install the firmware as it contains changes to the installed firmware.

1.32 release notes
https://support.hpe.com/connect/s/softwaredetails?language=en_US&collectionId=MTX-d8c86b5c3ce7444d&tab=releaseNotes&softwareId=MTX_93e33314a13445d9b38cab78da
1.31 release notes 
https://support.hpe.com/connect/s/softwaredetails?language=en_US&collectionId=MTX-d8c86b5c3ce7444d&tab=releaseNotes&softwareId=MTX_f87fc4e05ab3417faa843a46ab
 
Have anyone seen this? I don't know how often HPE releases Firmware that only updates part of the PCIe device so i don't know how common it would occur and what consequenses it could have if there are anything more critical contained in the part firmware update that does not get applied if using Oneview for firmware updating.

Best Regards
//Cederberg

[ChrisLynch]

If you have not done so already, please open a support case.  When you do, be prepared to provide an OneView appliance Full Support Dump.  When you do, please private message me your support case ID.

[Cederberg]

Hi Chris.
No I have not opened a support case on this issue and i don't think I will either. The behavior of oneview firmware update was the same on two seperate DL380 Gen10 test ESXis. It updated BIOS and ILO and afterwards when booting on the SPP it wanted to update part of the networkcards firmware. If my suspicions are correct the issue includes both the ilo firmware and Oneview as the ILO only reports one of the Firmware versions from the networkcard to Oneview and based on that Oneview does not detect that it needs the firmware. So to me it's a "by design" issue.
As an evaluation of Oneview + Oneview for vmware vcenter we will take this in to account when deciding how to move forward.
I made this forum thread to see if anyone else has seen it and maybe warn others that this maybe happening on more firmware components.
Best Regards
//Cederberg