Upgrading UCS - VMWare ESX state at time of installation

[CiscoMedMed]

I've completed the Prepare for Firmware Installation for the chassis and blades. When I execute the install infrastructure, then chassis, then server firmware - what state should the ESX servers be in?

[Kirk J · Accepted solution]

The infrastructure upgrade will reboot the FIs one at a time, and prompt you to acknowledge the 2nd FI reboot.

During that time the ESXi hosts will either see one vmnic go down (this assumes dual vnics, 1 for side a, 1 for side b), or if if configured for fabric failover at the vnic level, you may not see any notification at the esxi host level.

The IOMs in the Chassis are linked to the connected FI, and will be booted with the new firmware as that specific FI is being rebooted.

The C or B series firmware bundles require a reboot of the ESXi host server, and the firmware is applied while the OS is offline/powered off.

This is normally staggered, so guestVMs will be vmotioned to other available hosts.

Kirk...