Some legacy Emulex FC HBA was disappeared after upgrade to ESXi7.0U3 OEM image

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0

Issue/Introduction

* Some legacy Emulex FC HBA was disappeared after upgrade to ESXi7.0U3 OEM image.
* The FC storage was inaccessible.
* The drvier "lpfc" had been installed, but it's not loaded while ESXi booting up.

# esxcli software vib list | grep lpfc
Name  Version                               Vendor  
----- ------------------------------------  ------  
lpfc  14.0.543.0-1OEM.700.1.0.15843807      EMU

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0

Cause

The lpfc driver version "14.0.543.0" or above was included in ESXi70U3 OEM images.
But the lpfc driver version "14.0.543.0" is not support some legacy Emulex FC HBAs.
Fox example:
LPe1605, LPe12004, LPe12000, LPe12002

Resolution

In this situation, we had to rolled back to old lpfc version "14.0.169.25" or other version in the HCL.
Lpfc version 14.0.169.25 is an INBOX Driver bundled with vSphere 7.0 U3d Build 19482537.

Follow step was as refer:
1.Check current lpfc version to confirm this issue. (It's version "14.0.543.0" or above)
  # esxcli software vib list | grep lpfc

2.Remove the up to date lpfc driver ( version "14.0.543.0" or above)
  # esxcli software vib remove -n lpfc

3.Extract the inbox driver VIB package from the ESXi7.0U3 image(ISO or depot ZIP).
  The path was "\vib20\lpfc\VMW_bootbank_lpfc_14.0.169.26-5vmw.703.xxxx.vib"
  Send it to the ESXi "/tmp"

4.Install the inbox driver "lpfc version 14.0.169.25"
  # esxcli software vib install –v /tmp/lpfc_14.0.169.25.vib

Additional Information

This issue had been found on HPE.
Other servers should be impacted if the latest lpfc driver include in the OEM images and some legacy Emulex FC HBA were installed in the system.

The HPE technical advise as follow:
HPE Emulex FC HBA - HPE ProLiant Servers Running VMware ESXi 7.0 U3 And Configured With Certain Fiber Channel Adapters (FC HBA) May Experience Loss of Storage Connectivity
https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docId=sf000090047en_us&docLocale=en_US

Impact/Risks:
As the FC HBA wasn't recognized, the FC storage was inaccessible after upgrade to ESXi7.0U3 with latest OEM images.