Author: Mischa Buijs

Flashing a HPE MSA 1040 via FTP

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In this article, we are going to flash an HPE MSA 1040 via FTP. At work, I faced a problem with a couple of HPE MSA 1040 storage arrays. Three out of ten were not displaying their web interface after about 200 days of uptime. This is not really a known problem for the HPE MSA 1040 :(. So it was time figure out a way to work around it. 

After some time, I noticed there is a built-in FTP flash option. About two hours later I finally got the latest firmware installed.

I have made a write-up to do it yourself. It is not really a difficult procedure but you need a couple of items ready and the correct command to get it all working.

Flashing the HPE MSA 1040

Note: I have tested this procedure on a Windows 10 client. The FTP tool for uploading the firmware is the built-in from Windows.

Prerequisites:

  • Download the firmware from the HPE website.
  • Store the firmware files in the following folder (C:\Temp).
  • Extract the bin file from the downloaded bundle.
  • Make sure no workloads are running on the HPE MSA.

Procedure:

  1. Start an SSH session with an available controller (no preferred choice between controller A & B)
  2. Enable the FTP service on the controller with the command: “set protocols ftp enabled”.
  3. Open a CMD shell (with administrator rights) on your workstation or management server.
  4. Run the following commands:
# Navigate to C:\Temp

# Start FTP session
ftp %IP-Address%

# Login
Username: ftp
Password: !ftp

# Navigate to directory
cd /

# Upload firmware and start flash
put TS252P001.bin flash

# Close FTP session
ftp close

# Go back to the SSH Session and disable the FTP service on the MSA
set protocols ftp disabled

Article update:

  • 2018-03-26 – Added feature image to page.
  • 2018-11-17 – Updated article to support the new standards of the website.

Veeam Availability Suite 9.5 Generally Available

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A couple of weeks ago Veeam Availability Suite 9.5 was made available for download.

New features

Some great new features have been introduced in the Veeam Availability Suite 9.5:

  • Microsoft 2016 server support (Windows Server 2016 and Hyper-V 2016)
  • Microsoft 2016 services support (Microsoft Active Directory, Exchange, SharePoint and SQL Server)
  • Storage Snapshot support for Nimble Storage
  • Direct Restore to Microsoft Azure
  • Advanced ReFS Integration

Read more

VMware vSphere 6.5 General Availability

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vSphere 6.5 - Logo

VMware vSphere 6.5 is General Available (GA) so this means it is available for download on the VMware website!

For those who like to try out vSphere 6.5. The download mirrors are listed below.

It might be a good idea to wait a couple of months or even until vSphere 6.5 Update 1 is released to put into production.

For those who are interested. In vSphere 6.5 the following features are now available. Keep in mind there are a lot of more items new or changed in this release. I just listed the most interesting:

  • VMware vCenter Appliance Enhancements:
    • Migration Tool
    • Improved appliance management
    • Native high availability
    • Native backup and restore
    • New API Explorer
  • VMware vCenter Administrative Interfaces:
    • vSphere Web Client enhancements
    • vSphere Web Client integration with vSphere Update Manager
    • vSphere Web Client integration with Host Profiles
    • vSphere Web Client integration with Auto Deploy
    • vSphere Client is onboard (HTML5)
  • vSphere 6.5 – Availability Enhancements
    • Proactive HA
    • VMware vSphere High Availability Orchestrated Restart
    • vSphere HA Admission Control Improvements
    • vSphere HA Support for NVIDIA GRID vGPU Configured VMs
  • vSphere 6.5 – Fault Tolerance Enhancements
    • Improved integration with vSphere DRS
    • Reduced network latency
    • Support for multiple port groups
  • vSphere 6.5 – Storage Enhancements
    • Advanced Format Drives and 512e Mode
    • Automated UNMAP
    • LUN Scalability (maximum number of LUNs to 256 and paths to 1,024)
    • NFS 4.1 Support
    • Software iSCSI Static Routing Support
  • vSphere 6.5 – Network Enhancements
    • Dedicated Gateways for VMkernel Network Adapter
    • SR-IOV Provisioning
  • vSphere 6.5 – Security
    • Virtual Machine Encryption
    • Encrypted vMotion
    • Secure boot support
    • Enhanced logging

vSphere 6.5 Announcement

The official announcement can be found on the following page (Link: VMware Announces General Availability of vSphere 6.5). The complete overview can be found in the VMware White Paper – vSphere 6.5 – What’s New PDF file.

vSphere 6.5 Download

Here are the download locations on the VMware.com website.

VMware vSphere 6.5 Announced

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At VMworld 2016 the next version of vSphere has been announced by Pat Gelsinger. The new version is called VMware vSphere 6.5 and introduces a lot of new features.

As I see it VMware has introduced some long-awaited features:

  • Native High Availability for the vCSA appliance
  • The vSphere Client is HTML5-based
  • VMFS allows for 512 devices and 2000 paths
  • vMotion supports traffic encryption
  • VMware Update Manager (VUM) integrated into the VCSA appliance

A couple of days after the announcement a lot of articles have been published on the internet. I have listed some of the most interesting that every VMware Engineer should read: