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The server or blade bundle

I read this blog article about what to carry on a USB stick in order to be able to manage your blade or rack servers and it got me thinking about something I mentioned to both the guys at Dell and HP the last time I met them either at a conference or at one of their blog events. The concept was just a directory structure per model containing the drivers and firmware for a server with a pre-defined baseline, so version 1.0 might be May 2011, which contains everything up to that date, and version 1.1 being June 2011, allowing me to be one month or so behind to prevent any issues from recently released updates and get everything up to a pre-determined baseline, understanding that I might have a mixed new and legacy estate.

For the HP:

  • HP Proliant Support Pack 8.60 for x86 and x64 (Windows 2003 x86 and x64)
  • HP Proliant Support Pack 7.90 for Windows 2000
  • HP firmware – I’ve simply downloaded the online firmware for the servers that I look after and named the firmware after the server name, so DL380 G5 for example
  • HP SmartStart ISO so that we can boot the server into the SmartStart cd and run the diagnostics or systems configuration
  • HP Firmware CD – again so that we can do the complete system firmware – that is the disk, array controller, integrated lights out, system and network

For the Dell:

  • Dell firmware for the servers that I look after – backplane, SCSI/SAS controllers, system, network and DRAC or iDRAC
  • Dell drivers for the servers that we look after – Windows 2003 x86 and x64 + Windows 2008
  • Dell DSET utility in remote and thick mode so that we can run and submit diagnostics
  • Dell OpenManage Administrator tool and agents pack

For the IBM

Other tools/utilities

  • Windows 2003 Service Pack 2 – useful if you need to re-service pack a server
  • Winternals pack – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee460919.aspx
  • Drac/ILO/RSA configuration scripts and utilities

Going forward the tools as well as the vendor utilities will naturally migrate or start to include ESXi tools and utilities as well as those for Hyper-V as they become more mainstream in my working space.

If I miss anything or you have suggestions, do let me know.  I would publish the bundle on the bladewatch site as a free download but I found the associated legal issues involved complex and not wishing to upset anyone or cause emotional trauma, I’ve listed them instead. As ever, they are just a guide and are in no way instructional and if in doubt ask your service provider or vendor for further information and best practice.

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