Firmware & Device Driver Updates HP and Windows 2000/2003 S/Packs

[SpanishWaiter01]

Hi All,

Can you help me?

We provide an IT-enterprise environment, where, there are many servers and thousands of end-users to support.

Our system is is built on HP Server Hardware & Windows 2000 and 2003 Server and Advanced Server Operating Systems.

No firmware and the device drivers on our HP infrastructure had been updated or uprated since first install.

However, we have applied the latest service packs to the Windows OS's mentioned above.

In troubleshooting problems, I have noticed on Hp.Com, that if you are a Windows 200x Server user and have a Proliant DL server, you may suffer/see a particular issue, for example, with a disc, array controller, cpu or nic.

Now, my question is, do you think HP and MS work jointly? As it is in the best interests of each undertaking, to make sure their products work in harmony and are defect-free.

As MS makes a service pack available to users, it would have eg., HP patches incorporated with it as well as OEM Hardware patches. Are OS's mentioned above intelligent and aware they are running on HP hardware, in this instance, and therefore find and fix any known problems as it has the solution installed in a file?

What are your views on this?

It would be nice if someone from HP or MS could post a comment to this thread.

All constructive comments appreciated.

Cheers,
Spanish Waiter

 

[burtsbees]

I don't know about specifics, but Windows may do something, and the firmware may think something else is going on, etc. The patches Windows outs out will fix certain issues, and the HP firmware will fix others. You should ALWAYS keep up to date with HP Firmware, especially since the advent of RAID 6 being more popular. RAID controllers can sometimes fail SCSI drives, and you can update firmware, and POOF! They come back to life.

Burt

 

[TheLad]

If you are going to update firmware, make sure you are running the latest Proliant Support Pack. That will also tell you what your firmware levels should be and whether you have a component or components that require firmware updates.

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"Insert funny comment in here!"
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[SpanishWaiter01]

Guys,

I have no control over device driver and firmware updating.

Our management has no will to do it & they have been told many times of the risks and consequences of failing to act.

I think, although they have not openly expressed any view per se; its too financially costly, technically risky, there is no time left on the project to address each server and they don't want to ask the customer for machine-down time to carry out routine preventative and corrective maintenance.

They will only allow MS S/packs, Patches and Hot-Fixes only.

I must admit, the frequency of BLSOD/machine has gone down significantly since the servers have been service packed.

I think HP and MS are working in tandem.

Our management have the philosophy of: As long as a server [ASR's eg]recovers; it's not a matter of concern.

Cheers,

Spanish Waiter