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Upgrading compute firmware using vSphere Lifecycle Manager

As an option for VMware solutions, you can use vSphere Lifecycle Manager (vLCM) to upgrade the firmware on all the compute nodes in a cluster when you install or upgrade ESXi and firmware on new or existing hosts. Upgrades for BMC, BIOS, CPLD, and I/O card firmware are supported.

Before you begin

Note
  • You cannot use vSphere Lifecycle Manager (vLCM) to perform firmware upgrade on vSphere 8.0.
  • The compute I/O card firmware will not be upgraded if the BMC, BIOS, and CPLD are already updated to the latest versions.
  • Verify that the compute servers (hosting ESXi) onboarded to UCP Advisor are in a vCenter ESXi cluster.
  • Onboard/add the compute node along with ESXi details to the UCP system in UCP Advisor.
  • Upload the supported firmware bundle/hardware support package to UCP Advisor.
  • Verify that the vCenter hosting the compute server is registered in UCP Advisor (with Hardware Support Manager (HSM) and client plugins deployed) and that the vCenter has been attached to the UCP system where the compute nodes have been added.
  • Verify that the UCP Advisor HSM plugin is registered on the vCenter server.

    NoteThe vCenter HSM plugin is automatically registered when the vCenter client plugin is registered.

Procedure

  1. Browse to the cluster containing the nodes where you want to upgrade the firmware.

  2. Select Updates.

    View updates in vLCM

    This step is only valid if the image is already set up. After it is set up, you can view it. The image setup procedure can be found in https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2020/04/vsphere-7-patching-lifecycle-management.html.

  3. Verify that the ESXi version displayed is the version you want to apply to all the nodes in the cluster.

  4. In the Image pane, click Edit.

  5. For Firmware and Drivers Addon, click Select.

  6. From the hardware support manager list, select UCP Advisor Plugin.

    Select the HSM
  7. Select the firmware and driver addon that you want to apply to the nodes.

  8. Click Select.

  9. Click Validate to validate the image.

    Validate the image
  10. Click Save.

    The image is checked for compliance automatically.Image compliance

    You can toggle between the Full comparison and the Only drift comparison to see all the information.

    The firmware compliance table will only show compliance details for BMC, BIOS and CPLD firmware. Card firmware compliance will not be scanned for through the Check Compliance operation.

  11. Click Run Pre-check to perform several pre-checks on the host to determine whether it is ready for the firmware to be upgraded.

  12. Click Remediate All to sequentially upgrade all hosts in a cluster.

  13. Review the remediation impact summary information, including the notes.

    Review Remediation Impact
  14. When done, click Start Remediation.

    You can check the status of the firmware upgrade in the UCP Advisor tasks panel and overall cluster image upgrade in the vCenter tasks panel.

    Check Recent Tasks in vCenter The upgrade could take up to 90 minutes for each host.

Results

The firmware on all the hosts that are out of compliance is upgraded.