As a virtualization engineer, I recently ran into an unexpected issue while updating my HP ProLiant BL460c G8 blades from VMware ESXi 5.0.0 Update 1 to the latest Build 821926. After installing the new blades and applying the update, I noticed that the local storage was no longer visible on the hosts.

To troubleshoot the issue, I decided to record the output of the esxcli command and found a hidden gem inside the output: the removal of the Hewlett-Packard bootbank scsi-hpsa VIB by the VMware update itself. This removal effectively removes the ESXi hosts’ ability to read the local datastore from the HP Smart Array P220i Controller.

I then downloaded the scsi-hpsa-5.0.0-28OEM.500.0.0.472560.x86_64.vib file from hp.com and installed it on the host to rectify the issue. After installing the update and reinstalling the HP ProLiant Smart Array Controller Driver, another quick reboot later, my host was upgraded to the correct build and the local datastore was available again.

This experience taught me a valuable lesson: be careful when updating your hosts and make sure you have a real retreat option ready if you need to quickly roll back to the previous build. Test your updates every time, as you never know what issues may arise. As virtualization engineers, we must always be vigilant and proactive in our troubleshooting and testing to avoid any potential issues that could affect Our Production Environments.