Product Requirement Portal

Hello Thomas,

thank you.

Best Regards,

Thomas

Hello Thomas, we have internally discussed this long running idea - sorry for the delay. We came to the conclusion, that the correct system state regarding the software / firmware versions only can be obtained by a re-boot procedure. So, on short term we see no chance for a satisfying solution. Any workaround will need an additional system re-boot. We need to change the status of this idea to "Will not implement". Sorry for that.

Hello Andrzej,

I can only speak for our managed environments. In 99 % of the cases the offline update is prepared while the server is online as it typically takes some time. During the maintenance window we then execute these updates. In such situations the given information would be correct. There could be a hint, that the finally applicable updates might differ if the server was offline during the preparation.

Best Regards,

Thomas

Hello Thomas,
not every controller can be seen without being powered on or without agentless service installed on host. You can run offline prepare procedure even with host powered off or without agent/agentless service (any host must be installed beforehand!) on host and it will update installed controllers.

So yes, eLCM can take a look and present all supported updates for all controllers for given platform, but not always is able to say what is really installed in the system if some conditions are not fulfilled. Presenting such long list of updates could lead to user confusion why he is prompted about updates for controllers he doesn`t have.

Hello,

sorryfor the late reply. I didn't recognize that my request is now handeled under a different ID and this one is not accessible with my partner account.

I totally agree that rebooting the server twice (recognize applicable updates and apply updates) is not leading into the right direction.

What I do not understand is, why the online update handles this process differently. I would expect eLCM can take a look into the downloaded materials even in offline mode. From my perspective it should also be possible to see which firmware is currently installed. Is it technically not possible get this information or is it just not implemented in that way?

Best Regards,

Thomas Frankenstein

Hello,
eLCM offline update in opposite to eLCM online update prepares internally image with all possible updates for particular platform, what means that the update image possibly will contain binaries for all supported controllers and versions for specific platform (e.g.: all RAID/LAN controllers, BIOS & iRMC versions etc., which are supported by repository for RX1330M4). Version comparison and components availability recognition is done by UME image once offline update is in execution phase, not during preparation.

This is the reason why iRMC could easily display all supported components added to update image, but it might lead to user confusion why a specific update binary is added to update once it is not installed in server.

Second option would be to prepare kind of a dry run of update image to provide list of components which could be updated with versions to which update could be performed. However, it means system reboot to get such knowledge, what might be not welcome by users. Next UME boot would be required to perform real updates, so it best case user would have to perform at least 2 system reboots to perform update.

Summing up, Offline update is not that easy vs Online update to foresee what kind of updates will be performed.

Please let us know your view on this topic, if they are any preferred solutions having about in mind.

Thank you Thomas Frankenstein for your idea. It is clear that such a pre-notification will be useful for the organization of such offline updates. We need to clarify now whether such a "look ahead" can be implemented easily.