Revision 1 posted to TechCenter Chats - Wiki by DELL-Sheetal G on 1/30/2014 2:26:15 PM
| Rasmus Haslund | Hey Lance |
| Lance Boley | Hello ... |
| Lance Boley | you are early ... |
| rolltidega | hey hey hey |
| rolltidega | i am early too! |
| Lance Boley | Hey Shawn ... how are you ... |
| hypervfan | Hi |
| rolltidega | I am doing OK |
| Lance Boley | and Tom has joined too ... |
| Lance Boley | Good to hear ... |
| hypervfan | Congrats on winning the karting race Ramus, good to know that we keep the trophy over here :) |
| hypervfan | *Rasmus |
| Lance Boley | Ah ... that is right ... Tom got it last year ... |
| Lance Boley | Rasmus won everything ... |
| hypervfan | yes, I saw that on his blog post :) |
| Rasmus Haslund | Thanks Tom :) |
| rolltidega | You won so much you need to share with the rest of us. :=-D |
| Rasmus Haslund | lol I tried my best hehe, but did not win that 2nd SSD from Samsung :) |
| hypervfan | Nice of you to let others win something as well :) |
| Rasmus Haslund | Well you know what they say, you dont win silver medal... you loose gold :) |
| Rasmus Haslund | I really missed both you Tom and Shawn at Dell World |
| hypervfan | Would have been great to attend. Hope to be able to next year |
| Jeff Sullivan | it's a bevy of rockstars! Hello everyone |
| hypervfan | Hi Jeff |
| Dennis Smith | Hey everyone! |
| Rasmus Haslund | Heeey Dennis! |
| Rasmus Haslund | and Jeff! |
| Jeff Sullivan | Hey Tom, Rasmus |
| hypervfan | Hi Dennis |
| Rasmus Haslund | The LEADER of Dell TechCenter Community ;) |
| Rasmus Haslund | The GENERAL of... |
| Rasmus Haslund | :) |
| Didier Van Hoye | evening all! |
| Rasmus Haslund | Hey Didier! |
| Didier Van Hoye | Happy new year |
| Didier Van Hoye | Hi Rasmus :-) |
| hypervfan | Hi Didier |
| Dennis Smith | Since most of you guys here were at Dell World....post any blogs you write in the rockstart forum so we can help socialize them |
| Didier Van Hoye | Got one coming up ... |
| Didier Van Hoye | Fluid Cache for SAN |
| Dennis Smith | sweet! |
| Dennis Smith | we are working on getting some tech videos up on that as well :) |
| Didier Van Hoye | Good |
| Khaled Omar | hello everyone |
| Rasmus Haslund | Hi Khaled |
| Rasmus Haslund | Is Enterprise Forum 2014 dropped? |
| Rasmus Haslund | EMEA |
| Khaled Omar | hi @Haslund |
| Didier Van Hoye | It was in April right? |
| Rasmus Haslund | Yes |
| Dennis Smith | Hmm, haven't heard..it's still listed on the site http://dellenterpriseforum.com/emea/ |
| rolltidega | Hey Dennis |
| Khaled Omar | hi Dennis |
| Lance Boley | Thanks for joining everyone ... Welcome todays chat on Firmware Updates |
| Dennis Smith | hey Shawn, Khaled |
| Lance Boley | We have Raja with us today to tak about it more ... |
| Lance Boley | Raja take it away |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | Good Afternoon everyone.... and a happy new year |
| Khaled Omar | to u too Raja |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | I am one of the Engineers here are Dell working on iDRAC7 and Lifecycle Controller... and firmware updates is one of the primary areas that I work on |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | Today I plan to cover a few new features that we have released with the latest iDRAC7 firmware and you are welcome to ask any firmware update questions in general |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | 1. Firmware Rollback from the iDRAC7 Web Interface |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | 2. Repository Based Updates to update multiple devices at the same time |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | 3. Auto Updates to schedule updates to automatically happen at your desired system down time |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | Does that sound interesting to everyone ? |
| Rasmus Haslund | Yes indeed |
| Didier Van Hoye | It does :-) |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | great... feel free to ask any questions as they come up |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | Firmware Rollback has been a feature that we have supported from the LC (F10) console and via WSMAN as well |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | with the recent firmware release we have extended this feature to the iDRAC7 Web Intreface as well |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | what exactly does that mean ? you can now login to the iDRAC7 web interface and rollback all firmware versions to a version that cached in LC if you desired to do so |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | The iDRAC7 web interface has always supported rollback for the iDRAC firmware alone... are you familiar with this feature ? |
| Didier Van Hoye | I have never needed it :-) |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | Great... we dont generally recommend downgrading to a previous firmware release unitl and unless it is really necessary |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | but there have been certain corner cases where customers had to use this feature and I can go over a few scenarios if required. |
| Khaled Omar | maybe corruption in the new firmware or the upgrade process requires this rollback |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | exactly... and also to maintain all servers at the same firmware level... newer machines ship with the latest firmware from the factory |
| Didier Van Hoye | I once hear we could use XML templates for BIOS settings |
| Didier Van Hoye | Could you elaborat on that |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | and it might not match with the firmware thats running on all other machines in your DataCenter... at which point you can use the rollback feature to downgrade to a desired firmware level |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | The firmware rollback from iDRAC7 is just an extension of the iDRAC7 rollback feature, which now enables us to rollback all firmwares, that is NIC, BIOS, RAID etc along with the iDRAC7 firmware |
| Khaled Omar | why we focus on rollback the newer machines and not updating the old firmwares to the latest one ? |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | The firmware rollback lists out all rollbacks that are available along with the version it would rollback to... you can pick and choose the ones that you want to rollback... |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | Great question Khaled.... |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | most customers have a test bed of known machines, devices and firmware levels that they rely on.... |
| Dell_Selva Subbiah | @Didier - Yes you can use Configuration XML template for BIOS settings and more |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | they go over an extended test cycle before upgrading their machines to the newer firmware levels.... |
| Dell_Selva Subbiah | here is a video that talks about that feature - http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/m/videos/20437569.aspx |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | hence when they just buy once new machine to add to their data center, they rollback / downgrade that particular machine to a known firmware level that has been tested in their environment |
| Didier Van Hoye | Thx |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | Khaled, does that answer your question ? |
| Khaled Omar | and this rollback can be done for multiple devices simultaneously ? |
| Khaled Omar | yes |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | that is correct, if you are performing the rollback from the iDRAC Web interface, you can choose more than one device to be rolled back to a previous version at the same time |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | The rollback feature is tied in well with the existing job control and logging mechanisms and hence you can monitor the status of the rollback as they are being performed |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | if there are no other questions about rollback, I would like to move on to the next topic - Repository Updates |
| Khaled Omar | is there any new feature to the web interface related to this rollback process ? |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | yes this is part of the iDRAC web interface.... Once you login to the iDRAC web interface, navigate to the Update and Rollback Tab on the left |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | On the right you should see the Update | Rollback Options, choose Rollback |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | You should see a list Components, their current version and the version that is available for rollback |
| Khaled Omar | you can make reports regarding all the rollbacked devices ? |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | yes, once you select one or more device for rollback and click Install, the job queue and the lifecycle log should have corresponding entries for each rollback that is being performed |
| Khaled Omar | good |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | great... |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | moving on to Remote Repository Updates |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | How many of you like to find out which device on your machine is out dated, go to support.dell.com and find the update thats applicable to that device, download it |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | and install it one at a time |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | ? |
| hypervfan | Always good with stuff that can be automated :) |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | exactly... |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | I always found that process to be very time consuming and error prone... as I might download the wrong file, the file that not applicable etc... |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | and hence we came up with the idea of a remote repository based update.... |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | Remote Repository Update provides the mechanism to update a wide variety of firmware and applications installed on the PowerEdge server at the click of a button. This feature uses an update repository created using the Dell Repository Manager to download and install the updates. The repository could either be ftp.dell.com or a user generated repository on a local network share. |
| Didier Van Hoye | So basically we can phone home & get the latest DUP to be installed one by one ... |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | exactly... |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | we also went one step further... i always found calling home very stressful, parents your know :) , what about phone a friend ? |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | we all like to phone a friend right... help me when I am in trouble kinda stuff.... |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | what does that mean here ? |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | not only can you get updates from ftp.dell.com... but you can instead create a local repository on your secure local network and download all the updates from that local share... |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | Remote repository updates provides a simple and easy way to automatically figure out the latest updates that are available for your PowerEdge server and install it all at once at the click of a button. |
| Didier Van Hoye | So we can use our existing local repository for that? |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | yes you can, a local network share that contains all the update packages |
| Khaled Omar | local repository will be great incase of large number of devices |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | for the iDRAC to compare the packages that are available on the local network share with the versions that are installed on your machine, you need to create the local repository using the Dell Repository Manager |
| Khaled Omar | i mean updates for devices |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | which creates an index file of all updates that are avialable, the devices it is applicable to and their versions |
| Didier Van Hoye | Ok, that's cool, we know the repository manager |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | awesome... |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | so you could use repository manager to create a replica or a sub set of ftp.dell.com thats specific to the machines in your data center |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | copy it to a local share, point the iDRAC to that share |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | and thats it... |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | the iDRAC now compares the versions thats currently running on it host with the one thats available on the local share... |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | downloads and installs the updates |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | again... these are linked to the job queue and lifecycle log infrastructure, thereby enabling your to track these updates |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | Remote Repository Updates is supported via the iDRAC7 Web interface, WSMAN, RACADM and the Local (F10) Lifecycle Controller UI |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | that brings us to our third topic, auto updates... |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | with the latest firmware, you can automate this update process to happen every so often as you desire |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | you can setup the iDRAC to go query your local repository every so often for updates |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | and also install any updates that are available |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | For example, you can now schedule updates to happen the last day of each month at midnight. Once the scheduled time is elapsed, the iDRAC will query the remote repository for a list of available updates and compare it to the versions that are currently installed. If new updates are found, the iDRAC will download the update packages and update the corresponding devices. |
| Khaled Omar | from ftp.dell.com and local repository ? |
| Didier Van Hoye | So basicaly you add new servers, configure autoupdate and it will get all the firmware you've got in the repository automatically |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | yes, if your iDRAC has access to ftp.dell.com, you can configure it to look for updates on ftp.dell.com and install them as they are available |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | exactly Didier |
| Khaled Omar | better to make test for the updates before automate the process |
| Khaled Omar | so i mean will be less used for me |
| Didier Van Hoye | sure, but if you at 10 servers of same make to esiting 100 in DC you can just leave them afeter racking and they could be update by the next morning for you |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | you can also manage the updates by only updating the local repository with tested firmwares.... thereby your machines only pick up known and tested frimwares for updates |
| Khaled Omar | sure |
| Khaled Omar | but after test |
| Didier Van Hoye | Yes |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | we will be updating our tech center with whitepapers for these new features in the coming weeks... |
| Dennis Smith | Awesome! We would like to thank Raja for going over all these features with us today and you guys for joining! |
| Dennis Smith | Any last questions before we wrap up this chat? |
| Khaled Omar | thanks |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | I hope this was a useful session and that I answered your questions, please write to us with any further questions you may have and we will be happy to assist you |
| Didier Van Hoye | Thx Raja |
| Dennis Smith | As always, the chat will be posted later for recap...and if you have any questions feel free to post them on our forums! |
| Dell_Raja_Tamilarasan 2 | Thanks everyone... |
| Dennis Smith | no chat next week...see you guys in 2 weeks! |
| hypervfan | Thanks |
| Didier Van Hoye | OK |
| Didier Van Hoye | thank you |
| Didier Van Hoye | see you next tille |
| Didier Van Hoye | time |
