With these tough economic times many organizations are trying to make the most out of every dollar and that is especially true in healthcare. In my specific case this means re-utilizing existing equipment to help further the goals of the organization (if only temporarily) rather than burning a whole the size of Texas in the IT capital budget. So over the course of the last few weeks we’ve been preparing to re-light the original HP C7000 Enclosure that launched our foray into the virtual world some 20 months ago. The enclosure has since been shipped to a new data center where it was racked alongside quite a few other HP C7000 enclosures. While we had originally hope to keep all our VM enclosures standardized with HP’s Flex 10 Virtual Connect modules, we’ll be deploying this enclosure with HP’s 1/10GB Virtual Connect modules.
This was the first time I’ve ever run the HP Virtual Connect Support Utility so I wasn’t sure what to expect. There were 6 1/10GB Virtual Connect modules in this specific enclosure that needed to be upgraded. If you are utilizing NIC teaming and you have the modules/interconnects cabled in such a way that they are completely redundant then you should be able to upgrade without any downtime. I was able to maintain connectivity (Remote Desktop) to a HP BL460c while the upgrade was running and while the various modules/interconnects rebooted (one at a time). I could see the different NICs on the Microsoft Windows 2003 server go up and come down as the module/interconnect that fed that NIC was rebooted and then recovered. The NIC teaming configuration was the secret sauce that kept the server online and reachable while the utility upgraded the interconnects (one at a time).
You can see from the line of questions that HP put some thought into the upgrade process. The interactive utility will walk you through the upgrade asking you such questions as “Do you want to Specify VC-Enet module activation order?”, “Do you want to Specify the amount of time(in minutes) to wait between activating or rebooting VC-Enet modules?”, etc. In all it took some 35 minutes to upgrade all 6 VC Ethernet modules, the VC SAN modules didn’t require an upgrade.
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HP BladeSystem c-Class Virtual Connect Support Utility
Version 1.5.2 (Build 173)
Build Date: Jan 6 2011 11:26:43
Copyright (C) 2007-2010 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
All Rights Reserved
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Please enter action ("help" for list): help
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Action Description
===============================================================================
update Update the module firmware on the target enclosure using the specified Virtual Connect firmware package
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discover Search a range of IP addresses for Onboard Administrators on the network
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collect Collect diagnostic information from a target configuration
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configbackup Download Virtual Connect configuration backup configuration file
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healthcheck Check the configuration status of a target enclosure
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help Display VCSU command help
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packageinfo Display information for a given Virtual Connect firmware package file
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report Display current module firmware versions, package firmware versions, and whether a module is updatable
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resetvcm Reset the Virtual Connect Manager on the remote management configuration
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supportdump Download Virtual Connect support information
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version Display list of current module firmware versions on target configuration
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Please enter action: update
Please enter Onboard Administrator IP Address: 10.1.44.129
Please enter Onboard Administrator Username: Administrator
Please enter Onboard Administrator Password: ********
Please enter firmware package location: c:\vcfwall317.bin
Please enter Bay Number (Optional):
Please enter Configuration backup password (Optional):
Do you want to force an update on modules? (yes/NO):
Do you want to Specify VC-Enet module activation order? (yes/NO):
Do you want to Specify VC-FC module activation order? (yes/NO):
Do you want to Specify the amount of time(in minutes) to wait between activating or rebooting VC-Enet modules? (yes/NO):
Do you want to Specify the amount of time(in minutes) to wait between activating or rebooting VC-FC modules? (yes/NO):
Please enter the VCM Domain user credentials.
User Name: Administrator
Password: ********
The following modules will be updated:
==============================================================================
Enclosure Bay Module Current Version New Version
==============================================================================
USE839F82T 1 HP 1/10Gb-F 3.15 3.17
VC-Enet Module 2010-10-09T07:18:16Z 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
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USE839F82T 2 HP 1/10Gb-F 3.15 3.17
VC-Enet Module 2010-10-09T07:18:16Z 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
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USE839F82T 5 HP 1/10Gb-F 3.15 3.17
VC-Enet Module 2010-10-09T07:18:16Z 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
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USE839F82T 6 HP 1/10Gb-F 3.15 3.17
VC-Enet Module 2010-10-09T07:18:16Z 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
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USE839F82T 7 HP 1/10Gb-F 3.15 3.17
VC-Enet Module 2010-10-09T07:18:16Z 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
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USE839F82T 8 HP 1/10Gb-F 3.15 3.17
VC-Enet Module 2010-10-09T07:18:16Z 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
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The following modules will NOT be updated:
=====================================================================
Enclosure Bay Module Current Version Status
=====================================================================
USE839F82T 3 HP Virtual 1.41 7.12.4.11 No update needed
Connect 4Gb FC
Module
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USE839F82T 4 HP Virtual 1.41 7.12.4.11 No update needed
Connect 4Gb FC
Module
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During the update process, modules being updated will be temporarily
unavailable. In addition, the update process should NOT be interrupted by
removing or resetting modules, or by closing the application. Interrupting
the update or the modules being updated may cause the modules to not be updated
properly.
Please verify the above report before continuing.
Would you like to continue with this update? [YES/NO]: yes
Updating firmware [Step 2 of 3 : 0% complete]
Updating firmware [Step 2 of 3 : 50% complete]
Updating firmware [Step 3 of 3 : 0% complete]
Updating firmware [Step 3 of 3 : 50% complete]
The following modules were updated successfully:
=======================================================================
Enclosure Bay Module New Version
=======================================================================
USE839F82T 1 HP 1/10Gb-F VC-Enet 3.17 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
Module
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USE839F82T 2 HP 1/10Gb-F VC-Enet 3.17 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
Module
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USE839F82T 5 HP 1/10Gb-F VC-Enet 3.17 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
Module
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USE839F82T 6 HP 1/10Gb-F VC-Enet 3.17 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
Module
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USE839F82T 7 HP 1/10Gb-F VC-Enet 3.17 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
Module
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USE839F82T 8 HP 1/10Gb-F VC-Enet 3.17 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
Module
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Total execution time: 00:34:13
Press Return/Enter to exit...I’m curious what other people’s experiences have been upgrading their Virtual Connect modules?
Cheers!
So far we’ve had good luck upgrading our VC firmware. With one notable exception: you need to static your VC module IP addressing or you will experience all sorts of odd issues when attempting to update the modules.
Hi Mike,
We had the same issue with some of our original Flex/1 interconnects… also ran into the DNS issue (HP has a bulletin available) which supposedly has been resolved in 3.17 software.
Cheers!
We had ran into some great issues when upgrading the vCnet to 3.17, the Firware upgrade took forever, and at the end after 1.30 hr when it couldn;t restart the module it has given up, but restarting them manually one bye one ( we had 4) has fixed it. 2 hrs of horror and calling HP support, who has no clue of this behaviouor.
Hi Maddy,
I just upgraded the same HP 1/10Gb Flex/1 interconnects to 3.18 firmware and they failed to reboot just as you describe. I had to manually reboot them one at time through the OA. When they restarted they were running 3.18 software.
Very odd.
Cheers!
Hi guys!
I upgraded VConnect from 2.32 to 3.30, but I could only do that using the vcsu command line tool. I tried a lot of times using the Virtual Connect’s website Administrator and was imposibble to upload the file “vcfwall330.bin” (123.9MB). I don’t know why but the browser (IE7,IE8,Firefox7,Chrome) still blocked.
So I’ve used the VCSU command for linux to Upgrade the firmware and all was OK!
Here my log ouput:
lucup@lenovo:~/Downloads/usr/local/bin$ ./vcsu -a update -i 172.xxx.xxx.xxx -u lucup -p xxxxxxxx -l /home/lucup/Documents/hp/swpackages/vcfwall330.bin -vcu lucup -vcp xxxxxxxxx
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HP BladeSystem c-Class Virtual Connect Support Utility
Version 1.6.0 (Build 178)
Build Date: Jul 7 2011 22:42:01
Copyright (C) 2007-2011 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
All Rights Reserved
——————————————————————————-
The following modules will be updated:
==============================================================================
Enclosure Bay Module Current Version New Version
==============================================================================
USE852JND5 1 HP 1/10Gb 2.01 3.30
VC-Enet Module 2008-12-08T17:49:25Z 2011-08-16T02:29:46Z
——————————————————————————
USE852JND5 2 HP 1/10Gb 2.32 3.30
VC-Enet Module 2010-01-06T02:07:47Z 2011-08-16T02:29:46Z
——————————————————————————
USE852JND5 3 HP 1/10Gb 2.01 3.30
VC-Enet Module 2008-12-08T17:49:25Z 2011-08-16T02:29:46Z
——————————————————————————
USE852JND5 4 HP 1/10Gb 2.32 3.30
VC-Enet Module 2010-01-06T02:07:47Z 2011-08-16T02:29:46Z
——————————————————————————
USE852JND5 5 HP 4Gb VC-FC 1.40 7.12.4.06 1.42 7.12.4.14
Module
——————————————————————————
USE852JND5 6 HP 4Gb VC-FC 1.40 7.12.4.06 1.42 7.12.4.14
Module
——————————————————————————
During the update process, modules being updated will be temporarily
unavailable. In addition, the update process should NOT be interrupted by
removing or resetting modules, or by closing the application. Interrupting
the update or the modules being updated may cause the modules to not be updated
properly.
Please verify the above report before continuing.
Would you like to continue with this update? [YES/NO]: YES
Updating firmware [Step 2 of 3 : 0% complete]
Updating firmware [Step 2 of 3 : 38% complete]
Updating firmware [Step 2 of 3 : 41% complete]
The following modules were updated successfully:
======================================================================
Enclosure Bay Module New Version
======================================================================
USE852JND5 1 HP 1/10Gb VC-Enet Module 3.30 2011-08-16T02:29:46Z
USE852JND5 2 HP 1/10Gb VC-Enet Module 3.30 2011-08-16T02:29:46Z
USE852JND5 3 HP 1/10Gb VC-Enet Module 3.30 2011-08-16T02:29:46Z
USE852JND5 4 HP 1/10Gb VC-Enet Module 3.30 2011-08-16T02:29:46Z
USE852JND5 5 HP 4Gb VC-FC Module 1.42 7.12.4.14
USE852JND5 6 HP 4Gb VC-FC Module 1.42 7.12.4.14
Total execution time: 00:42:20
VCSU log file is available at the following location:
/home/lucup/Downloads/usr/local/bin/vcsu-10201.log
———————-
Bye
LUCUP
HP BladeSystem c-Class Virtual Connect Support Utility
Version 1.3.0 (Build 188)
Build Date: May 20 2008 12:34:23
Copyright (C) 2007-2008 Hewlett-Packard, All Rights Reserved
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Please enter the VCM Domain User Credentials.
User Name: admin
Password: *******
Initializing, 68% complete…
C:\Program Files\Hewlett-Packard\Virtual Connect Support Utility>
it just goes to 68% and goest back to the prompt. I even tried creating another user. Should the ip address be of the OA or of the VC? The VCM domain user account is that the same user / pass that I use to log into VC.
Hi Lee,
You should be using the IP address of the Virtual Connect Interconnect that’s acting as the Master (assuming you have more than one VC interconnect).
You might want to reboot your interconnects one at a time (assuming they are redundant) and see if that helps.
You can find a few other posts regarding HP’s Virtual Connect over on the discussion forums.
Cheers!
Hi Lee. upgrade the vcsu to 1.6.0 and this will resolve the issue you are seeing
I’m having a little trouble finding just the firmware for the flex-10 module. I need to downgrade the firmware of two newly acquired flex modules, which came with a newer firmware revision than the enclosure currently supports. I have the support utility, and I’ve downloaded Virtual Connect Firmware, with the correct version, but I’m not quite clear on the relation between the Virtual Connect Firmware and the firmware of the actual module. Also it seems to implying an enclosure wide firmware change, without being able to choose which module is being updated
TIA,
Jonthan
Hi Jonathan,
What version are you trying to downgrade from? to? Do you have the FlexFabric?
The On-board Administrators (OAs) usually need to be upgraded, but that’s the only requirement that I’ve ever seen.
I see that HP is up to release 3.51 for the HP VC Flex-10 Interconnect;
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareIndex.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodNameId=3794431&prodTypeId=3709945&prodSeriesId=3794423&swLang=8&taskId=135&swEnvOID=1005
Good Luck!