Updating Firmware on HP Proliant?

[jrh910]

How do you upgrade the firmware on your HP Proliant servers? We have around 70 HP Proliant ML370 G5 ESX 3.5 hosts running various versions of BIOS and firmware levels. I know it's possible to boot up to the firmware upgrade CD on each host and run the update manually, but that certainly doesn't strike me as an "enterprise ready" solution. I hear about companies with 100+ hosts and I can't believe they run around with CD's or sit around booting from the iLOs to keep things up to date.

Any ideas?

[jayolsen]

Have you checked out using the version control agent from HP?

http://www.hp.com/wwsolutions/misc/hpsim-helpfiles/mxhelp/mxportal/en/useTools_vc_about_vca.html

[jrh910]

jayolsen,

yep - that works great for Windows based servers. I'm looking for something that will update the firmware and BIOS on VMware ESX servers. I would be interested to know if there is a way to get the version control agent working with VMware ESX and would appreciate any info you may be able to provide.

[seniord]

JRH,

There are 3 options available to automate firmware updates for HP servers as defined in the following article;

Unfortunately, HP Version Control does not currently support ESX (as you are aware) and neither does HP Smart Update Manager.

Therefore, you the only other option is HP Rapid Deployment Pack which is a licensed product. Within HP RDP, the Upgrade ProLiant ML/DL/BL Firmware job uses LinuxPE, not the production operating system. Therefore you can use it on bare-metal servers. The job upgrades the following hardware: System BIOS, Smart Array, iLO, NIC, QLogic HBA, and local hard drives.

You can also use this tool to automate your ESX server deployment including the hardware configuration.

Hope this helps, Dan.

[seniord]

I should have highlighted that the HP RDP method requires a reboot. Whilst not ideal, at least it is a centralised and automated process.

Dan.

[vmproteau]

I don't think you were responding specifically to my post but, I hadn't received any responses about using the HP Firmware Update CD. Each OS is at a different supported firmware level. For instance, if you choose WIndows, it will have 8.4, if you chose "Operating System RHEL 3 x86" it is 8.3. The ESX section doesn't have a Firmware CD section. Is "Operating System RHEL 3 x86" the correct OS to choose when updating an ESX Host using the HP Firmware CD?

[seniord]

This is a good question which I am currently investigating with HP. I have previously recommended using the very latest version of the Firmware Maintenance CD. However, I have asked for further clarification and will post once I get a response.

[seniord]

Speaking with collegues within HP, it is recommended to use the latest version of the HP Firmware Maintenance CD to ensure that you are up to date with all firmware revisions.

Daniel.

[Roysan]

Seniord,

Hello, I instaled the latest BIOS, but am having problems installing the Firmware Maintenance CD v8.40. After the HP Smart update Manager scans the server, it says I am using SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, and wants to update. Someone in an earlier post said it should say VMware.....I could not find a way to pick VMware, so I went ahead and use what HP reccomended. I then proceded to install ESX server with no problems.

Will I have problems in the future?

VIC v2.5.0/14763

VirtualCenter v2.5.0/14763

ESX Servers v3.0.2/52542

[vmproteau]

I'm not sure what that "SUSE Linux Enterprise Server" references. I've personally never seen it say anything else regardless of the OS. Even on brand new servers with no OS I see that. I don't think it will ever say VMware.

The only thing I've questioned in the past is which version of the Firmware Maintenance CD to use as OS section under driver downloads often have different version as the latest.

[seniord]

If you want to stay up to date with the latest firmware, select the latest version available under any of the OS versions. Currently this is 8.40 under Windows.

[seniord]

Roysan,

The CD will never specify VMware so you should accept the recommendation provided. In offline mode, only firmware is updated and drivers specific to the OS are not installed. Therefore there should be no issues using the recommended option regardless of installed OS.

[mcowger]

Our kickstart install updates the BIOS from the COS with the dell agent.

after that, we just dont upgrade the BIOS unless we need to (e.g. it fixes a bug).

--Matt

[jrh910]

mcowger,

That's the same process we follow. However, what do you do when you need to update the BIOS/firmware? Does Dell have any better solution than walking around -or remoting in - to each server with a boot disk?

[mcowger]

Yes they do.

Dell provides a shellscript that you can run that will prepare the system, 'preinstall' the BIOS, and then on next reboot the BIOS will get updated. This shell script works fine in the COS and requires no manual intervention (besides initiating a reboot)

--Matt

[dominic7]

If you're using ESX Classic you can dowload the appropriate online flash images and then execute them in the service console to flash the firmware on the devices that need upgrading. If however you're using ESXi there really is no better solution than booting off the HP firmware update image ( I do it over ilo ) and updating the firmware. I tend to do this per cluster when I roll out a new ESX version so that everything is consistent, and yes it's aterrible pain in the ass for 200+ systems. I don't really see HP putting things together and creating a CIM provider anytime soon though.

Edit: When I say appropriate flash images download them from the HP site under your system version, Operating System RHEL 3 x86.

[vmproteau]

So is it confirmed that "Operating System RHEL 3 x86" is the correct OS to choose when looking for the latest ESX 3.5 supported HP Firmware CD? This has always confused me since HP doesn't include a Firmware CD-ROM section if you choose ESX as an OS on the driver download page.

[jrh910]

Moving from vCenter Server to ESX 3.5

[madda]

A moderator will move the thread, there isn't a need to restart the thread

[cf13]

I use firmware maintenance CD.

If you want to automate this process you can think about using HP-SIM. There is a possibility to integrate not only Windows Proliant Servers with SIM but ESX as well. There are HP-SIM agents available for ESX. If you wolud like to use this solution, it requires testing. In my environment HP-SIM agents were rebooting ESX Proliants and that were "hard" ASR reboots. I didn't have patience to test it more and I ended up with using firmware maintenance CD. But I believe that for large environments integration with HP-SIM may be good solution.

[seniord]

As per my previous post in this thread, HP SIM cannot be used to upgrade firmware as the HP Version Control module it does not support ESX.

However, HP SIM can be used to monitor ESX servers by installing the HP Insight Management Agents for ESX. These agents can also be installed when you don't have HP SIM as you can assess a Systems Management Webpage which provides hardware information on the server.

In regards to these agents causing issues with 'hard' reboots, you should disable ASR in the server BIOS to prevent this from happening.

Daniel.

[cf13]

Sorry for not reading the whole thread. Version Control Agent seems really to be not included in HP-SIM agents for ESX. I didn't come that far in my tests, because this ASR problems. I didn't want to disable ASR so I decided not to use these agents at all.

[hardingp]

Firmware maintenance cd is the way to go. I believe the lastest versoin is 8.3

I've deployed over 70 ESX hosts using it. There are no drivers for ESX from HP that are required for any of the features that I'm aware of.