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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please enter action ("help" for list): help
===============================================================================
Action Description
===============================================================================
update Update the module firmware on the target enclosure using the specified Virtual Connect firmware package
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
discover Search a range of IP addresses for Onboard Administrators on the network
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
collect Collect diagnostic information from a target configuration
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
configbackup Download Virtual Connect configuration backup configuration file
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
healthcheck Check the configuration status of a target enclosure
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
help Display VCSU command help
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
packageinfo Display information for a given Virtual Connect firmware package file
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
report Display current module firmware versions, package firmware versions, and whether a module is updatable
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
resetvcm Reset the Virtual Connect Manager on the remote management configuration
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
supportdump Download Virtual Connect support information
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
version Display list of current module firmware versions on target configuration
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
USE839F82T 2 HP 1/10Gb-F 3.15 3.17
VC-Enet Module 2010-10-09T07:18:16Z 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
USE839F82T 5 HP 1/10Gb-F 3.15 3.17
VC-Enet Module 2010-10-09T07:18:16Z 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
USE839F82T 6 HP 1/10Gb-F 3.15 3.17
VC-Enet Module 2010-10-09T07:18:16Z 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
USE839F82T 7 HP 1/10Gb-F 3.15 3.17
VC-Enet Module 2010-10-09T07:18:16Z 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
USE839F82T 8 HP 1/10Gb-F 3.15 3.17
VC-Enet Module 2010-10-09T07:18:16Z 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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
---------------------------------------------------------------------
USE839F82T 4 HP Virtual 1.41 7.12.4.11 No update needed
Connect 4Gb FC
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 : 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
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
USE839F82T 2 HP 1/10Gb-F VC-Enet 3.17 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
Module
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
USE839F82T 5 HP 1/10Gb-F VC-Enet 3.17 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
Module
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
USE839F82T 6 HP 1/10Gb-F VC-Enet 3.17 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
Module
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
USE839F82T 7 HP 1/10Gb-F VC-Enet 3.17 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
Module
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
USE839F82T 8 HP 1/10Gb-F VC-Enet 3.17 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
Module
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
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!