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RajuVCP
Hot Shot
Hot Shot
‎07-29-2015 02:48 AM

BIOS version variation in the Cluster. Will it effect Cluster performance?

Hi All,

Just curious to know.. if have Cluster with 10 host(Same Model and Vendor - eg - Dell PowerEdge)  and not all the host in the cluster are running with same BIOS version.

If am running host in cluster with different BIOS version will it going to effect my Cluster performance.

What if i update all the host with same BIOS version, will i see any improvement.

Waiting for your suggestions guys.

Thanks in advance.

Raju Gunnal VCP 4, VCP 5, VTSP 4, VTSP 5, ITIL V3 http://www.techtosolution.com
Tags (2)
2 Replies
Anjani_Kumar
Commander
Commander
‎07-29-2015 03:28 AM

Well. for running a good and uniform infra. you must update the server bios/firmware version of all the hosts in to similiar level.This is the best practice for installing/managing/updating the vsphere.

you need to match it to similiar level everytime once you upgrade it.

Not sure about peformance but this will help you out to bypass many other issues which can cause by the hardware and firmware version.

So Always update your firmware first and most important keep them in similiar level..

Please consider marking this answer "correct" or "helpful" if you found it useful. Anjani Kumar | VMware vExpert 2014-2015-2016 | Infrastructure Specialist Twitter : @anjaniyadav85 Website : http://www.Vmwareminds.com
Gbinfra
Contributor
Contributor
‎07-29-2015 07:22 AM

I have been using Dell PowerEdge for a long time now with our customers, we provide custom vSphere Platforms in our DC which all use Dell Hosts.

When using older BIOS / Firmware versions on Dell kit we have seen some strange performance issues across the platforms.

We have found that the newer versions of BIOS and Firmware do provide some significant bug fixes / performance enhancements that make it perform much better with newer versions of vSphere.

Due to these increases that we have seen we now update the BIOS and Firmware as part of our vSphere upgrade procedure. this has reduced the amount of errors we see from storage and also increased reliability and performance.

Running different versions can cause strange issues cross host and its always easier to troubleshoot if all hosts are as identical as possible.

I would recommend you get updating, use the following tool Dell Repository Manager, you can export the updates as an ISO mount this to the iDRAC and then update without leaving your seat Smiley Happy, one thing i will recommend is to move the iDRAC update to be the last one applied as you will lose connectivity to the console during this update.