UPDATE: HP has updated their drivers to include support for Server 2008 R2. The version number is 9.80.10.0.
If you look inside the cp011548.xml file, you will see the following:
As you can see, Server 2008 R2 is listed as a supported OS. There is no longer a need to make the changes.
However, if you want to extract the contents of the executable, use Winrar or 7-zip. Once you open the executable, you will see all the files that it contains. See below.
We’ve wanted to start testing Server 2008 and SQL 2008 and eventually begin a migration process from our current environment of Server 2003 and SQL 2005. We purchased some blade servers with two BL680c servers allocated for our new environment. I began prepping the servers first with Server 2008 R2 since it was available for us to use. This wasn’t our first time installed Server 2008, but it was our first time installing Server 2008 R2 on our blade environment.
The install of the operating system went smooth. We were able to install the Proliant Service Pack 8.21 without any issues as well. However, we did run into one problem – the HP Network Configuration Utility would not team our NICs. We were able to team two of the NICs, and it looked as if it successfully teamed them. Yet when we looked in the Configuration Utility, it showed no teamed NICs. Weird. When we looked in the Network Connections applet, they showed as disconnected. After a restart, the teamed NIC was gone.
After searching HP’s site for an update, we found version 9.70 available for download; we were running version 9.60. After checking out the enhancements tab, it showed that there was support for Server 2008 R2. Perfect. We downloaded the update and tried to install it on the server. This is when we ran into our next hurdle – the error message stated that the update was incompatible with our operating system. That seemed odd since it was for Server 2008 x64 with support for R2.
After some searching around, it seems that we weren’t the only ones who were experiencing this issue. However, the sites I came across didn’t have resolutions to this problem, so I called HP support to find out what was going on.
After speaking to a service rep, he informed me that Server 2008 R2 hasn’t been certified for the BL680c. He forwarded me the Proliant support matrix for Server 2008 R2 (see left), and the only system that was shown as supported was the BL460 G1 series. That does me no good. Unfortunately, he also had no time table as to when it would be certified, but he did send me the link for the Proliant Support Pack for Server 2008 R2, but it was in the beta stage. I didn’t want to run the risk of installing beta software on our servers which were slated to enter production in the near future.
I’ll just have to keep checking the site and hope that our servers will certified before they enter production.
UPDATE (09/17/09): Diego, from HP, left a comment on how to resolve this issue. Thanks Diego for the tip!
I tested it out and it worked with no issue! I did have to update the drivers for the NICs as well. After that, I had no issues teaming the NICs.
Here’s what I did.
First, I edited the cp010849.xml file and added the following line to the subsection labeled "SUPPORTED_OPERATING_SYSTEMS" under the "PREREQUISTES" section. See the image below if you need to see what the final output should be.
supported_operating_system platform="nt_x86-64" major="6" minor="1" sr="OEM" name="Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2"/
NOTE: In order to edit the file, you’ll have to extract the contents of the downloaded executable to your drive first.
Once I made the changes to the file, I re-ran the setup and was able to install the updated software. See below for screenshot.
Elsewhere