ESXi 4 with HP Management Agents and Customizations ?

[wouterd]

Hello,

I have 2 test servers who where installed using the "VMware ESXi 3.5 U4 Installable with HP Management Agents and Customizations" image.

In health status I can see my raid config status, controller status, etc..

I upgraded one of the servers to ESXi4 with the "VMware ESXi 4.0 (upgrade ZIP)" using the vSphere Update Client

When opening the vSphere Client and checking the heath status on the ESXi4 server I can not see the raid status and disk status. I only can see the status of the extra SAS controller used by the tapestreamer. (not the disks or Raid controller where my disks are attached to).

Are there new HP Management Agents available for ESXi 4?

See attached files to see difference between ESXi3 and ESXi4.

[lamw · Accepted solution]

Generally the ESXi installable w/management agents are slightly behind from the GA release, I would expect to see the new image distributed in the coming weeks. I would suggest contacting HP and see if they have an ETA on when the new image will be available.

=========================================================================

William Lam

VMware vExpert 2009

VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at:

VMware Code Central - Scripts/Sample code for Developers and Administrators

If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".

[Troy_Clavell]

last I heard from our HP rep is that they were supposed to have something last week, but as of today there isn't an update.

This is the best I could find

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01570108/c01570108.pdf

[kjb007]

The ESXi 4.0 zip should include all vendor agents in the image. You'll have to extract them from the zip and replace your oem.tgz with the vendor specific one.

-KjB

VMware vExpert

[NJKwork]

Hi,

I am having the same exact problem (well, except I don't see ANY disk information). All I see after upgrading to 4i is "Processors" and "Software Components". I have a DL585 G2 server. Could you be more specific about what you mean by "You'll have to extract them from the zip and replace your oem.tgz with the vendor specific one"?

Thanks

SB

[kjb007]

Download the latest patch from vmware for ESXi. Unzip it, and within that package will be additional zip files. Unzip the one that ends in -SG.zip Inside of that will be Vmware-OEM-image.tar.gz. Unzip that and you'll find all of the vendor files. Take the hp.tgz and replace /bootbank/oem.tgz with that file. Reboot

-KjB

VMware vExpert

[NJKwork]

Sorry, still confused:

1) I downloaded "ESXi-4.0.0-0.4.164009-upgrade-release.zip" from VMware site. If this is the wrong file let me know, but this is what I used to upgrade from 3i to 4i and the upgrade completed.

2) I opened up the ZIP with WinZip and there are no additional ZIP files contained in it. The only thing I find remotely close to a ZIP format is "VMware-image.tar.gz".

3) I opened the above mentioned file with WinZip and all that is in there is the file "VMware-VMvisor-4.0.0.-164009.x86_64.tar.gz.temptar".

So as you can see, none of this matches your instructions. Assuming I eventually find hp.tgz, I don't understand what you mean by "Take the hp.tgz and replace /bootbank/oem.tgz with that file". How do I get into the OS file system of ESXi 4 on my machine to replace this file? The only options I have are the console on the server to configure server name, IP info, and root password, and the vCenter client which only see's the datastores not the OS file system (using the browse feature). I can't seem to use Putty to connect to the ESXi server like I can with an ESX server.

Thanks

SB

[Dave_Mishchenko]

I think you'll have to wait until HP releases a CD as the upgrade zip doesn't contain a HP oem.tgz file that I can find (unlike the last bunch of ESXi 3.5 patches). To enable SSH see the article on vm-help.com.

[NJKwork]

Thanks. I will wait a few weeks and check again for an HP version.

SB

[kjb007]

My mistake. Since there are no current "patches", there is oem file for you to use. That procedure works for 3.5, and I assume will work for 4i in the future, but it does not yet.

-KjB

VMware vExpert

[NJKwork]

Not a problem. I appreciate you trying to help. Thanks!

SB

[Braumin]

How frustrating!! We had to wait until 3.5 U4 to finally get HP Storage monitoring, and now once again we seem out of luck. Hopefully this is out soon as it is kind of a deal breaker for us to upgrade to vSphere at the moment.

[Troy_Clavell]

removed link so I can get confirmation for HP that it's ok to share

[Schorschi]

The entire process for integrating 3rd party components to ESXi is going to change. VMware is rethinking the entire process to inject 3rd party code into ESXi. Not sure when the new process will be released, but it is coming.

[TheTechie]

Does anyone know if we'd be able to add HP Management Agent to ESXi 4 with a patch or will we have to reinstall ESXi 4 with a upcoming integrated install? Basically I have a new HP server and trying to decide if I should go with ESXi 4 but I don't want to have to reinstall to get the HP Management Agent.

Thanks.

[Schorschi]

This is a hard question to answer without stepping on NDA. But here goes... I am going uses some terms in a loose sense here to avoid specifics, but still communicate the concept...

The hardware vendors have a 'method' authorized by VMare, to create an enhanced ESXi image, or establish a 'delta' component that is applied to the baseline ESXi image at boot/install that 'injects' their management CIM provider code into ESXi. The details on the technology I will not discuss, but in short, you should be able to purchase ESXi from the given vendor with the hardware agent support they provide ABOVE and BEYOND what VMware provides as baseline as seen in vCenter 4.

The expectation is that you will use the respective vendor management server/console to receive alert/status monitoring beyond what vCenter shows under the Health status, so IBM Director Server, HP SIM, Dell MC (once ITA). ESXi out of the box has basic monitoing but nothing compare to what each vendor, HP, Dell, IBM will provide with the additional CIM providers, and their management back-ends.

The technology for injecting code into ESXi is based on a number of things in the VMware API, and beyond, of which that I will not comment. But per VMware, all such 'authorized' additions are not just the rolling of a 'oem.tgz' as many have done already with ESXi, to go beyond the VMware HCL for example. The process and control of 'authorized' injections is signficant compared to 'oem.tgz' free for all we have seen so far.

[DSTAVERT]

The HP version is available from HP. It does contain the CIM agents.

http://h20392.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/displayProductInfo.do?productNumber=HPVM05

There is also the zip upgrade 3.5 to 4 but since you have already upgraded ?????? You may be able to re run the upgrade tool using the HP zip.

upgrade bundle

[TheTechie]

Thanks for the link to the upgrade bundle. However am I able to upgrade using the vSphere Host update Utility? I'm trying to upgrade another one of my ESXi 3.5 hosts but when I select the upgrade .zip package I get the following error:

Failed to read the upgrade package metadata. Could not find c:\...\temp\metadata.xml.

I checked the zip file and the zips within it and can't find a metadata.xml file within it..The HP page instructs on using the CLI but I'm not having much luck with it either. Temped to reinstall fresh.

Thanks.

[Schorschi]

We are having issues with getting HP Storage Controller information/events/alerts to show up in HP SIM. Using vihostupdate method, I too am having issues, applying the HP offline bundle to generic ESXi. We get a mismatch error on metadata.zip.sig. We then tried the HP variant of ESXi 4, and that does show disk events for example in vCenter but not in HP SIM. We have opened a case with HP, we are current for latest version of HP SIM, firmware, bios, etc. Can not wait to start testing IBM director integration for ESXi 4, usually HP is painless and IBM is a pain to get right, but if HP is painful so far? I don't want to think what IBM director integration testing will be like.

[LucasAlbers]

I encountered your issue, see my resolution: