Best Practice blade BIOS and firmware updates

[cybercoaster]

I've been doing some searching and not really finding anything exactly what I am looking for. I have inherited some UCS Domains lately with a mix of M3-M5 blades. There are several updating Service Profile Templates named to the clusters in VMware.  I am going to take the FI to 3.2.3i very soon and after that, I want to take the blades all to the same level as well (after testing at "test" site).  What is the best way to update firmware on the blades?  To change the Service Profile Template FW policy and making sure USER ACK is on the maint policy (it currently is USR ACK) and then me reboot each server as I vacate the VMs one by one? If you use Install Server Firmware from the Firmware Auto Install tab, wouldnt the policy still override that?

Currently the servers are all over the place with what package version they are using. I hope to delete all the old packages once I get to 3.2.3i as the bootflash is very close to 70% already.     

Appreciate your assistance in advance. 

[Wes Austin · Accepted solution]

"To change the Service Profile Template FW policy and making sure USER ACK is on the maint policy (it currently is USR ACK) and then me reboot each server as I vacate the VMs one by one?" This.

The "Install Server Firmware" tab can also be used, but typically only before the servers have service profiles. You would use this if you were setting up the domain from scratch and wanted to update the blade firmware all at once before they have service profiles attached.

Just make sure when you delete your old packages that there are no blades/racks still using those bundles or packages that reference them as numerous faults will occur.

Good Luck!

[cybercoaster]

Thank you very much for the confirmation!