HP has released a new version of the firmware for G7 blades which use an Emulex be2net Nic rather than the Broadcom bnx2x Nic used in G6 blades.
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=329290&prodSeriesId=5033632&swItem=co-103088-1&prodNameId=5033634&swEnvOID=54&swLang=8&taskId=135&mode=3
This is an offline update so will require you to boot from an .ISO to apply the firmware update.
New Features
- Added support for the following operating systems: – RHEL 6.2
Resolved Issues from Firmware Version 4.0.360.15
- A file level restore (FLR) request sent to a BE3 device while rebooting an HP UX guest VM image caused a timeout event.
- When users tried to disable beaconing, they would receive a “Success” status even if beaconing had already been disabled.
- The CN1100e device using VLAN did not pass traffic using “copy”. This failed only in full power mode. Traffic only passed in auxiliary mode.
- The NC551 adapter failed to link with the 10Gb Pass-Thru module when using a 1Gb SFP transceiver.
- The CN1000e device occasionally lost connection to network-attached storage (NAS) volumes when running an FCoE protocol under heavy load.
- The FCoE port did not register as connected after repeated virtual connect (VC) module failovers.
- The Flex NIC required changes to the DCC method to keep the link down until the switch explicitly sent link up.
- A BL460c G7 array with P410i version 5.1x firmware would not boot from iSCSI if a logical drive was connected to it.
Known Issues
There are no known issues for this release.
Have a look at my updated post: HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 & VMware ESX(i) pre-requisites for information on all firmware & driver compatibility.
HP has updated its ESXi 5.0 image to include ESXi 5.0 Update 1.
The HP ESXi Offline Bundle for VMware ESXi 5.0 includes the latest HP Common Information Model (CIM) Providers, HP Integrated Lights-Out (iLO) driver, HP Compaq ROM Utility (CRU) driver, and the new HP Agentless Management Service (AMS).
https://h20392.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/displayProductInfo.do?productNumber=HPVM09
Direct Download:
http://h20565.www2.hp.com/portal/site/hpsc/template.PAGE/public/psi/swdDetails/?sp4ts.oid=4194638&spf_p.tpst=psiSwdMain&spf_p.prp_psiSwdMain=wsrp-navigationalState%3Dlang%253Den%257Ccc%253DUS%257CprodSeriesId%253D4194735%257CprodNameId%253D4194638%257CswEnvOID%253D4115%257CswLang%253D8%257CswItem%253DMTX-c14ba20dc6274cc38e3203c3cb%257Caction%253DdriverDocument&javax.portlet.begCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken&javax.portlet.endCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken
The latest versions are:
- hp-smx-provider 500.02.10.61.43-434156
- char-hpilo 500.9.0.0.9-1OEM.500.0.0.434156
- char-hpcru 5.0.0.8-1OEM.500.0.0.434156
- hp-ams-esx-500.9.0.0-55.434156
Enhancements:
- Added support for:
- HP ProLiant BL460c Gen8 server
- HP ProLiant DL360p Gen8 server
- HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 server
- HP ProLiant ML350p Gen8 server
- HP ProLiant DL160 Gen8 server
- Added the new HP Agentless Management Service
- Added the following support to the HP CIM Providers:
- HP iLO4 (Integrated Lights-Out)
- HP SmartSSD Wear Gauge
- HP SmartDrive
- Support for additional Power Supply
One of the challenges with working with HP blades and HP Virtual Connect switches is ensuring all your software and firmware versions are in sync as unfortunately there have been many firmware incompatibility and reliability issues that have plagued the technology over the years and making sure you have firmware that works certainly helps with your sanity!
I’ve been tracking the firmware requirements in my Flex-10 ESX pre-requisites post.
With the release of vSphere 5, things are a little simpler as there is no longer an ESX platform, only ESXi so you don’t have to worry about tracking separate driver requirements for both hypervisor releases.
Read more…
Updated: 9 September 2011 with new documentation links.
HP’s major announcement at VMworld was the HP VirtualSystem but also announced was the latest firmware update for Virtual Connect to 3.30 which is now available for download today.
HP says that 5 million ports have been shipped although I’m not sure how this is calculated. Each Flex-10 switch for example has 8 ports although typically most customers only use 1-3 so adding up all available ports in a switch which is typically underused seems like good old marketing hyperbole!
Read more…
HP was out in force at VMworld last week. Their major announcement was the HP VirtualSystem for VMware which is HPs pre-configured, tested and optimised converged infrastructure offering built for vSphere 5. This is HPs answer to FlexPod (Cisco, VMware, Netapp) and Vblock (Cisco, VMware, EMC) although with the HP VirtualSystem all the components (storage, networking, compute) are unsuprisingly HP rather than incorporating any other vendor other than VMware for the hypervisor.
Read more…
VMware has released a new Broadcom bnx2x Nic Driver for ESX(i) 4.1 which is used in HP blades for the HP NC532 Nics.
http://downloads.vmware.com/d/details/dt_esxi40_broadcom_bcm_netxtreme/ZHcqYnQlZXBiZGgqag
The new version is 1.64.32.v41.1
I’ve had confirmation from Rotem Agmon, a VMware Technical Consultant at HP that this new driver is not supported by HP.
The currently supported Update Manager driver friendly versions are:
ESX(i) 4.0 – 1.62.11.v40.1
http://downloads.vmware.com/d/details/dt_esxi40_broadcom_bcm57xxx/ZHcqYnR0d3BiZGVqdA==
ESX(i) 4.1 – 1.62.15.v41.2
http://downloads.vmware.com/d/details/dt_esx41_broadcom_netxtremeii_032311/ZHcqYnR0anBiZGhwZA==
My Flex-10 ESX(i) pre-requisites post has all the driver and firmware required versions.
There may be a situation where you need to downgrade your HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 firmware. You may need to downgrade to test/prove an upgrade again, you may have encountered a bug which forces you to downgrade or you may just need a roll back plan for your proposed upgrade.
In order to downgrade HP Virtual Connect firmware, you will need to shut down your HP blade environment as the downgrade procedure requires you to delete the Virtual Connect Domain which can only be done with all servers in all chassis in your Virtual Connect (VC) Domain powered down.
You need to ensure you have the local Administrator password for each Flex-10 module that came on the tag with the Flex-10 module. As you will be deleting the VC domain, any domain/local users created as part of the VC domain will not be available once the domain has been deleted.
Read more…
VMworld 2011 is coming up and one of the great things about the conference is independent community members can also offer to present on any topic of interest.
I’ve put forward a presentation proposal Designing and Building a Simple and Scalable Virtual Infrastructure with HP Flex-10 and ESX(i) which is the ONLY HP Flex-10 related presentation proposal.
As there are many more presentation proposals than available slots, the options are put to a public vote so YOU get to decide what you want to see at VMWorld.
If HP Flex-10 and ESX(i) is of interest to you, please vote for my session. You will need a VMworld logon and click on the thumbs up icon against any sessions that interest you, hopefully mine!
Title: Designing and Building a Simple and Scalable Virtual Infrastructure with HP Flex-10 and ESX(i)
Technical Level: Technical
Abstract: No one is downsizing their virtual infrastructure. Your virtual hosting environment is the one place in your IT department where you are not looking at making anything smaller. The benefits of virtualisation in managing costs by making better use of resources, improving availability by increased uptime and simplifying and standardising on your IT processes means you need to virtualise more and more. Using HP blades is a great foundation to build and expand your virtual infrastructure enabling you to create your own private or public cloud. HP Flex-10 delivers 10GbE to each blade and using VMware’s advanced converged networking capabilities allows you to provide IP Storage, VM Traffic, vMotion and FT to your infrastructure in a simple yet scalable way. Understanding and designing your infrastructure for HP Flex-10 can seem daunting, frustrating and confusing with too many options along with ever changing firmware and Nic driver version requirements. “Designing and building a simple and scalable virtual infrastructure with HP Flex-10 and ESX(i)” will show you how to configure your blade environment, what firmware versions you require and how to build your ESX(i) hosts with PowerCLI to take advantage of 10GbE converged networking.
Categories: Blog, ESX, Flex-10, HP, VMware Tags: esx, Flex-10, hp, networking, powershell, vmware, vmworld
HP has now released their Onboard Administrator (OA) 3.30 firmware after last week’s Flex-10 Firmware 3.18 release which had recommended the 3.30 OA although it hadn’t been released yet.
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=329290&prodSeriesId=3188465&swItem=MTX-bc11d40cf7b0465eacabefb649&prodNameId=3188475&swEnvOID=4040&swLang=8&taskId=135&mode=4&idx=2
Looks like it is a bug fix release as there are no enhancement or new features.
I’ve updated my Flex-10 ESX pre-requisites post for the OA 3.30 release although I’m not updating my recommendation for Flex-10 to 3.18 yet pending further reports and testing.
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