Storage Warning in the ESXi host Hardware Status tab

A few days ago i visited a customer who showed me an ESXi host storage status warning in the vSphere Web Client. My customer runs ESXi version 5.1.0 build-799733 on HP ProLiant BL 460 G6 servers.

Viewing the error from the ESXi host Hardware Status tab it shows that the warning is related to the HP Smart Array P410i Controller.

No errors has been seen when rebooting the ESXI host and accessing the HP Smart Array P410i controller. I started by verifying the status of the Smart Array P410i controller by running the following command:

• /opt/hp/hpacucli/bin/hpacucli ctrl all show status

The output showed me the the Smart Array P410i controller should be ok:

Smart Array P410i in Slot 0 (Embedded)
Controller Status: OK
Cache Status: OK
Battery/Capacitor Status: OK

This means the problem can/might be related to the agents running within the ESXi host responsible for monitoring. Information about both the “HP Agentless Management Service Offline Bundle for VMware ESXi” and “HP ESXi Utilities Offline Bundle for VMware” can be found at the HP web site using this link.

My customer was running the “HP ESXi Offline Bundle for VMware ESXi 5.x version 1.4”. This was determined by comparing the information from the web site mentioned earlier in the blog post and the below output from the ESXi host command command “esxcli software vib list | grep -i HP“:

• char-hpcru 5.0.3.09-1OEM.500.0.0.434156
• char-hpilo 500.9.0.0.9-1OEM.500.0.0.434156
• hp-ams 500.9.3.0-13.434156
• hp-smx-provider 500.03.02.00.23-434156

A never version, HP ESXi Offline Bundle for VMware ESXi 5.x version 1.4.5, was released April 25, 2013 and contains newer versions of the below software packages compared to the 1.4 release currently installed.

• hp-smx-provider 500.03.02.10.4-434156
• hp-ams-esx-500.9.3.5-02.434156

I used the following sequence, in the customer vSphere test environment, after downloading the patch.

1. Import the patch to vCenter Update Manager
2. Created a Baseline, HP ESXi Offline Bundle for VMware ESXi 5.x -20130425, and added the patch HP ESXi 5.0 Management bundle 1.4.5-3.
3. Attached the Baseline to the vSphere cluster.
4. Scan
5. Remediate
6. Verified the status of Smart Array P410i controller using the command “/opt/hp/hpacucli/bin/hpacucli ctrl all show status“.
7. Verified the new software versions using the command “esxcli software vib list | grep -i HP“.
   1. hp-ams-esx 500.9.3.5-02.434156
   2. hp-smx-limited 500.03.02.10.3-434156

The Smart Array P410i controller warning was gone after the ESXi host reboot.

After waiting one day i updated the customer production environment as well with the same positive result.