I was working on an HP P4300 Lefthand SAN solution and trying to create a management group when I got an error about an nvram card that is not normal, see screenshot.

When I run the All Tests at the diagnostics Tasks, the Cache Status was Corrupt.

I searched the internet for a solution and I didn’t find anything. I contacted HP about this problem and they send me an e-mail with the solution.

The solution is as follows. Go to the Storage tab on the node with the problem. Select Reconfigure RAID…

Note! This was a new HP P4300 device, brand new out of the box with no data on it. If there is data on it, please contact HP for another solution.

Select the correct RAID configuration, in my case RAID 5. Acknowledge the warning. This takes a few minutes, and when it finishes, go to the diagnostics again. Do the same diagnostic test and now the corrupt cache error message is gone. Problem solved.

This week I was working on a project with an HP MSA 2324 SA storage box. After unboxing it and checking the software I discovered that the Firmware was a bit old, so I checked the HP site for updates and yes there was a newer version for it. I downloaded the new firmware and I installed the firmware with the HP Storage Management Utility. Controller Module A is flashed correctly. The Controller Module A starts updating Controller Module B, this is an automated process. After a couple of minutes the firmware update was complete, see screen shot. 

At first sight it looks good, but suddenly my explorer shows the following screen.

And this loops, Controller Module A sees that Controller Module B has an older Management Controller Code version. That’s why Controller Module A starts the update process for Controller Module B. The Flash process on Controller Module B goes bad so it looks.

How to resolve this problem?

HP released an Sizer tool for Microsoft Hyper-V 2008 R2. Source : http://h71019.www7.hp.com/ActiveAnswers/us/en/sizers/microsoft-hyper-v2008.html

The HP Sizer for Microsoft Hyper-V 2008 R2 is an automated, downloadable tool that provides quick and helpful sizing guidance for “best-fit” HP server and storage configurations running in a Hyper-V R2 environment. The tool is intended to assist with the planning of a Hyper-V R2 virtual server deployment project. It enables the user to quickly compare different solution configurations and produces a customizable server and storage solution complete with a detail Bill of Materials (BOM) that includes part numbers and prices.

The HP Sizer for Microsoft Hyper-V 2008 R2 allows users to create new solutions, open already existing solutions, or use other types of performance data collecting tools, such as the Microsoft Assessment and Planning tool (MAP), to build rich Hyper-V R2 configurations based on HP server and storage technology. The tool allows rapid comparison of Hyper-V R2 characterizations using various HP server and storage choices.

Upgrading ESX 4.0 to 4.0 Update 1 on HP Proliant systems can fail or time out and leave the host in an unusable state if the host has HP Insight Management Agents running

Installing HP Insight Management Agents on ESX Server

In this case, I am using HP Insight Management Agents for VMware 8.2.5 (available here). I am also using a HP DL380 G6 Proliant servers with VMware versions 4.0.

Note: do not include the quotes (”) when entering commands.

PREPARE:

1. Download the correct Insight Manager agents for VMware.
2. Unzip the tgz file using WinRAR or something similar, and peruse the readme for up-to-date info.
3. Using the ILO utility or the physical console, hit Alt-F1, login as root at the command line.
4. To allow root ssh access in ESX as well as enable sshd client access (SFTP, SSH), we have to change the local sshd_config file.
5. At the command line, type: “vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config”
6. Go to the line that says PermitRootLogin, change from “no” to “yes”
7. If you are unfamiliar with vi, use arrow keys to navigate, put cursor on the “n” of “no”, hit the i key to insert, then type in “yes” and delete/backspace “no”. Then hit ESC twice to exit Insert mode. Type colon (:) to get the in-editor command line, type “wq!” and hit enter. This will save the doc and exit vi.
8. Back at the command line type: “service sshd restart”, hit enter.
9. After the service restarts, type “logout” to exit the console, hit alt-f11 to go back to the esx screen.