Updating BMC firmware on HS21 Blade
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I haven’t find automated way of updating BMC firmware on brand new IBM blades, if you are running any Microsoft operating system on blades then you use update express or Remote deployment manager(RDM) with IBM Director.
If IBM blades are brand new and you don’t have no operating system installed then to update Baseboard management controller (BMC) and other firmware’s you have to do it manually on each blade, one at a time, you just can’t do it on mass number of blades.
There is clustering tool called xCAT which can be used to update x86 firmware, but setting up xCAT needs some time. However for new IBM blade users updating BMC firmware is itself overwhelming because there are different version of firmware available on IBM site and finding one you need is not very easy either.IBM HS21 blade BMC can be found online on IBM site.
1.on IBM site in search menu type “5073202″ to search for document ID which is updated 8-2008 with latest information on BMC firmware for HS21 XM blades. Click on results where BMC firmware update version is listed as 1.25
2. Latest version of BMC firmware version is 1.25 as of release date 8-25-2008, firmware is available for download in 3 format ISO, IMG and zip format. I was told by IBM support that update runs faster using zip file.
3. Next extract the zip file on your PC , once you extract the BMC firmware update file you will find there is single pkt file called MJBT25A.pkt.Just don’t ask me what pkt stands for its IBM terminology.
4. Next login to AMM admin using web browser and surf down to Blade Tasks then click on Firmware update.
5. Select the IBM blade number you want to update BMC firmware and upload the MJBT25A.pkt file, click to confirm and wait for update to run it takes few minutes to update the BMC firmware
That’s all you need to do for updating BMC firmware on IBM Blades.
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RS_HAL_UK said:
All x86 IBM Systems products (including BladeCentre and System x), can be upgraded remote, using various tools, such as:
1. Remote Deployment Manager: RDM is IBM’s deployment tool for operating systems and infrastructure applications. This, in conjunction with IBM Director, helps IBM customers to deploy not only entire operating systems but to also ‘prepare’ hardware with RAID configs, latest BIOS and firmware and so on, prior to the OS deployment. With RDM’s tasks, you can update the System BIOS, BMC firmware, FCAL adapters and RSA cards. RDM is a licensed product.
2. Altiris DS: IBM’s ServerGuide Scripting Toolkit (SGST - free to download tool), integrates with Altiris and allows HP RDP and Altiris DS customers to prepare and deploy IBM-based packages, such as BIOS/firmware, as well as entire operating systems and ServeRAID adapter configurations to servers and blades.
3. Any PXE booting software that allows a boot-up environment on a remote system (using DOS or WinPE) can use the IBM BIOS/firmware updates available on the IBM Web site, to update hardware components on servers/blades. There are plenty of tools that do this and as long as they create a deployment environment, you can insert the DOS version of the update package and run it as a command line.
4. If you have an OS installed on your servers/blades, then the best way by far to update and maintain their hardware components is via IBM Director. This, with the aid of its Director Agent, will allow you to update your systems regularly, using IBM Director’s Update Manager and Software Distribution (Standard Edition is all you need) tasks.
Hope this helps.
November 2nd, 2008 at 2:00 pm
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