HPE Synergy Server Customization 703.0.0.11.1.5-9 not available in Vcentre 7u3i

[AndrewR2]

Good morning all.

I am planing an upgrade of esxi on a fairlly large estate (+-200 synergy blades) and I'm planing on upgrading the hosts to 7u3i which requires HPE Synergy Server Customization 703.0.0.11.1.5-9.  I have synced updates in lifecycle manager in multiple vcentres but this vendor add on is not available. 

Can someone please confirm when this will be released as we wuld like start patching the estate in May. 

[support_s]

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[PatrickLong · Accepted solution]

Like you, I have the HPE repositories correctly set in my VUM/vLCM with Download sources https://vibsdepot.hpe.com/index.xml and https://vibsdepot.hpe.com/index-drv.xml .  I also noticed the same thing - Lifecycle manager is NOT automatically downloading the HPE Synergy Server Customization 703.0.0.11.1.5-9 and I'm not sure why not.  I got tired of waiting so as a workaround, I manually downloaded the HPE-703.0.0.11.1.5.9-Jan2023-Synergy-Addon-depot.zip file and manually imported it into vLCM.

As an alternative, you could download the latest offline bundle for Synergy VMware-ESXi-7.0.3-20842708-HPE-703.0.0.11.1.5.9-Jan2023-Synergy-depot.zip which includes this spec and apply the image profile to your hosts, then use VUM/vLCM to apply any newer patches and ESXi builds.  And no, I have no idea why this latest offline bundle Release Date: 2023-03-30 would be based on an ESXi build from December 2022.  Both of the items above are available via links at https://www.hpe.com/us/en/servers/hpe-esxi.html

I'm curious about why you would stop at 7.0 u3i from December 2022 when builds 7.0 U3j (1/31), k (2/21) and l (3/30) have already been released?

[AndrewR2]

Hi @PatrickLong 

7u3i is the highest supported level for Synergy devices at the moment according to the following hpe document :

https://vibsdepot.hpe.com/synergy/Valid-vLCM-Combos-Synergy.pdf

Vsan which we use for our management cluster is only available upto 7u3i so we won't be upgrading those vcentres past 7u3i either. 

[PatrickLong]

Understood.  I don't have VSAN so I've never had to deal with that restriction.

I gotta be honest and say I always load the latest ESXi build on my non-Prod Synergy environments (apply latest HPE custom image profile first if a newer one is available, then patch to latest build via VUM) and latest-1 ESXi build on my production Synergy environments.  The fact that HPE would release a 'new-Synergy-supported image' on March 30th '23 that is based on a nearly 4-month old early-December '22 ESXi build is...frustrating to say the least.  I understand that validation cycles and regression testing take time, but I cannot imagine a scenario where I can responsibly respond to an inquiry from my Security team about why it's now late April 2023 and I'm *still* running a 4 month-old build of ESXi that is missing TONS of security fixes in multiple interim ESXi releases and my answer has to be "Sorry, that December 2022 build 20842708 is the latest validated Synergy image from HPE <shoulder shrug.>"  I'm required by company policy to install Windows OS patches within weeks of their release (or sooner, given rated severity) and I have the same requirement for the OS that is running my Windows vms, so I do it. If that's not supported by HPE, then I guess I'm in an unsupported state but at least it's a secure one.

I mean, either this Synergy line is an Enterprise-class environment or it's not.  If it is, HPE needs to devote more resources to ESXi build validation in order to permit more timely public image releases imo.  Four months is TOO LONG.  If I were running bare metal Windows on these Synergy compute nodes am I only "supported" running Windows builds and patches from 4 months ago and nothing more recent than that?  Is there a regularly-released "HPE-approved" Windows build/driver combination for Synergy compute modules like there is for ESXi?  I honestly don't know that since I'm 100% virtualized.  Serious enterprises and their security teams CARE about timely application of security patches to the ALL of the BIOS, firmware, OS, and software layers and HPE should care about that too.

They already broke the mold on this when they admitted that security fixes in new BIOS releases are *SO* important that they no longer require strict adherance to only running the BIOS version on the latest SSP release - and you can immediately load the latest released BIOS on Synergy under the idea of "Providing Faster Access to Key Updates" :

• Customer Notification a00050817en_us.