Deployment Framework Best Practices for Red Hat Enterprise Linux on HP ProLiant

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You can access the iLO control through any number of means including HP Online Configuration
utility, hponcfg, the System Management Architecture for Server Hardware (SMASH) command line
protocol, and the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI).
New for the HP ProLiant Gen8 platform, is the embedded HP Intelligent Provisioning ( IP) environment.
As an extension to the previous capabilities of the iLO, IP offers tools and utilities to configure a
system's hardware resources, like storage array and BIOS or System ROM settings, to launch an
installation of support operating systems, and to act a management or monitoring interface, even
when the respective server is powered off.
Firmware - As a collection of devices, the hardware component will most certainly have
corresponding firmware components. For your hardware, you can directly access and maintain or
easily manage the correcponding firmware components from the operating system component.
Research the manufacturer's suggested methodology for managing firmware updates and understand
the possible modes for flashing, or upgrading firmware. Due to the hardware specificity, firmware
upgrades are often directly tied to either the platform vendor or the individual component vendor.
In the context of this document and given the HP ProLiant assumption, you can flash nearly all of the
device firmware on-line from the operating system. Activation of the new firmware is either immediate
with a momentary outage or reset, or requires an operating system reboot or power cycle to complete
activation. For some firmware components, you need a quiescent device and HP recommends that
you perform only an off-line mode of upgrade.
BEST PRACTICE: For HP ProLiant Gen8, firmware is available within the Service Pack for ProLiant
(SPP) and is accompanied by the HP Smart Update Manager (HPSUM) utility to deliver, deploy,
upgrade, and report on the platform's firmware components. You can accomplish these functions for
off-line scenarios from within the IP boot option for HP ProLiant Gen8 systems, or by using the SPP as
a mounted application from the operating system for on-line firmware upgrades. In addition, you can
choose to use the lower level firmware components in their Smart Component EXEcutable (scexe)
packaging to upgrade specific device firmware on-line.
Operating System - For all but the simplest of services, it is customary to run a general purpose
operating system on the server. Even black-box services that appear to be an appliance-like offering
have this characteristic component. Almost all operating systems offer the ability to install on bare-
metal, using some type of process developed by the provider.
In the context of this document, it is assumed that the user wants to run a general purpose Linux
distribution on the HP ProLiant. For the remainder of this document, the Red Hat Enterprise Linux
(RHEL) distribution will be the focus. Many of the same concepts apply to other Linux distributions, but
for simplicity, all of the examples provided will have this particular RHEL focus. At this time, Red Hat
provides the RHEL distribution via media based images. With the required subscription model,
customers are also allowed to access any updates for the respective RHEL version directly from the
Red Hat Network (RHN) to address issues and security fixes in the form of errata.
To further simplify the model and representation, it is assumed that the RHEL operating system contains
the kernel, device driver, and minimal user space packages which comprise a minimally functional
installation. HP and Red Hat work together continuously to for hardware enablement of each
successive HP ProLiant generation of servers, ensuring the necessary kernel features are present for
the core chipset and that minimally functional device drivers are present for certification. When
schedules for releases of the hardware platform and the distribution cannot be reconciled, either