Reference Guide

ManualsBrandsHP ManualsSoftwareHP Virtual Connect Firmware

Technical white paper

UEFI and Virtual Connect

with HP ProLiant Gen9 Server Blades

Table of contents

Introduction .................................................................................................................................................................................... 2

Why UEFI now? ............................................................................................................................................................................... 2

UEFI Systems .................................................................................................................................................................................. 4

Role of Virtual Connect ................................................................................................................................................................ 4

How does Virtual Connect set the server profile? .................................................................................................................. 4

Role of VC in UEFI supported servers........................................................................................................................................ 6

How does VC assign boot modes?............................................................................................................................................. 7

PXE IP boot ordering ..................................................................................................................................................................... 8

Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 9

Support and other resources .................................................................................................................................................... 10

Resources ................................................................................................................................................................................. 10

Before you contact HP ........................................................................................................................................................... 10

HP contact information .......................................................................................................................................................... 10

Documentation feedback .......................................................................................................................................................... 11

Version ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 11

Acronyms and abbreviations .................................................................................................................................................... 12

See the latest version at hp.com/go/vc/manuals

Summary of content (12 pages)

PAGE 1
Technical white paper UEFI and Virtual Connect with HP ProLiant Gen9 Server Blades Table of contents Introduction .................................................................................................................................................................................... 2 Why UEFI now?............................................................................................................................................................................... 2 UEFI Systems..........
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This document briefly describes UEFI and how Virtual Connect supports UEFI through its server profiles. Introduction The use of the BIOS for PCs and servers extends over three decades. The BIOS runs on many PC and server systems today and is based on code initially developed in 1979.
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• UEFI-only operating system requirements • Expanded amount of I/O ports and bootable devices • Remote provisioning Based on the rapid deployment of UEFI as an industry standard BIOS, HP has released different products that support UEFI. Below are the list of products that HP has developed, or is developing, with UEFI as its core BIOS stack. Since the transition to UEFI must be gradual, HP has created a range of servers to smoothly transition customers from legacy BIOS to UEFI based servers.
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UEFI Systems Now that the HP server blades are available with UEFI support, it’s the right time for the other modules which coexist with the servers in the C7000 or C3000 enclosure to support UEFI, so that the customers are not faced with any issues in utilizing these extended features of UEFI. Leading the support of UEFI is Virtual Connect, which plays an important role of virtualizing the server blade’s SAN and LAN connections to the outside network.
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6. A successful write is communicated to VCM via OA. 7. The server boots using the configured server profile.
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Role of VC in UEFI supported servers Virtual Connect (VC) allows server administrators to configure the server boot mode in a server profile. HP ProLiant Gen9 server blades use the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) between the server blade firmware and the Operating System (OS). This requires VCM to make changes in how VC configures the boot options for a server blade.
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How does VC assign boot modes? As part of processing a newly installed server, VC reads information from the system BIOS to determine if the server is UEFI capable or not. This information is stored until the profile is assigned. A new server profile setting is added to let the customer decide if a server should boot in UEFI mode or Legacy mode. This setting is only applicable for UEFI servers.
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The following diagram illustrates the POST sequence on UEFI based systems: In case of Legacy Boot Mode when the server boots and reaches POST complete, VCM will read the current bootable devices from an EV and re-order them based on the profile configuration. The server then reboots with the newly configured boot ordering. In case of UEFI Boot Mode when the server reaches discovery complete, the design goal is that VC sets an EV.
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The following steps describe how this works using a Linux boot image: 1. A Target Machine (either bare metal or with boot sector removed) boots. 2. The PXE-enabled NIC broadcasts a DHCP request. 3. A DHCP server receives the request, and then responds to the client, offering the following information: • An IP address, subnet mask, DNS, etc. • The address of the TFTP server • The location of boot files on the TFTP server 4.
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Support and other resources Resources • hp.com/go/vc/manuals • hp.com/go/virtualconnect • hp.com/go/bladesystem Before you contact HP Be sure to have the following information available before you call HP: • Active Health System log (HP ProLiant Gen8 or later products) Download and have available an Active Health System log for 7 days before the failure was detected. For more information, see the HP iLO 4 User Guide or HP Intelligent Provisioning User Guide on the HP website (http://www.hp.
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Documentation feedback HP is committed to providing documentation that meets your needs. To help us improve the documentation, send any errors, suggestions, or comments to Documentation Feedback (mailto:docsfeedback@hp.com). Include the document title and part number, version number, or the URL when submitting your feedback.
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Acronyms and abbreviations BIOS Basic Input Output System DHCP Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol DNS domain name system EV environment variable FRU field replaceable unit HBA host bus adapter iLO Integrated Lights-Out OA Onboard Administrator OPROM Optional ROM in HBA/NIC PXE preboot execution environment RBSU ROM-Based Setup Utility RISC Reduced Instruction Set Computing TFTP Trivial File Transfer Protocol UEFI Unified Extensible Firmware Interface