"Controller firmware is VMware certified" warning for HPE Smart Array P816i-a SR controller

Products

• VMware vSAN

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

vSAN Skyline health under Hardware compatibility shows warning under Controller firmware is VMware certified for HPE Smart Array P816i-a SR controller.

The firmware installed on all the hosts would be matching with the versions listed and certified upon checking on Broadcom Compatibility Guide for the controller.

The warning from the vCenter vSAN Skyline heath would show as below.

Environment

VMware vSAN 7.x

VMware vSAN 8.0

Cause

The issue is caused by the storage controller utility installed on ESXi host is different.  The hosts may have hpessacli or ssacli2 utility installed.

This can be verified by running the below command on ESXi host SSH session.

esxcli software vib list | grep ssacli

host1.example.com  - hpessacli - HPE
host2.example.com  - ssacli2   - MIS

The two storage controller utilities are reading the firmware in different ways and causing the conflict in the reporting with vSAN skyline health.

Resolution

To resolve the issue, install hpessacli utility on all the ESXi hosts. 

In order to get the latest supported utility for the controller, please reach out to hardware vendor HPE.

Additional Information

vSAN Skyline health "Controller firmware is VMware certified" erroneously reports firmware version mismatch of the HPE Smart Array controller