HPE servers do not display both the "Physical" and "Logical" serial number

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• HPE BIOS information shows both Physical and Logical serial numbers:
  
  
  
  
• esxcfg-info -a will only display the logical serial number:
  
   \==+Hardware Info :
      |----BIOS UUID................................................0x7d 0xe7 0x8c 0x46 0xbf 0x3a 0x48 0xbf 0x83 0x50 0xe6 0xf0 0xee 0xa9 0x60 0x73
      |----BIOS Vendor..............................................HPE
      |----BIOS Version.............................................I44 (2.42)
      |----BIOS ReleaseDate.........................................2025-06-13T00:00:00
      |----BIOS Asset Tag...........................................
      |----BIOS Firmware Type.......................................1
      |----Product Name.............................................Synergy 480 Gen10 Plus
      |----Vendor Name..............................................HPE
      |----Serial Number............................................########## (Logical serial number)
      |----Enclosure Serial Number..................................
      |----Hardware Uptime..........................................532761045920
      |----Ipmi Supported...........................................true
      |----BMC Version..............................................3.13

• Reviewing the /commands/smBiosDump.txt from a log bundle shows (Type 1) which correlates with the logical serial number:
  
  System Info (Type 1): #123
    Manufacturer: "HPE"
    Product: "Synergy 480 Gen10 Plus"
    Serial: "##########" (Logical serial number)
    SKU: "P22139-B21"
    Family: "Synergy"
    UUID: 7d######-####-####-####-########6073
    Wake-up: 0x06 (Power Switch)


• Reviewing the /commands/smBiosDump.txt from a log bundle show (Type 3) which has multiple entries:
  
   Chassis Info (Type 3): #164
      Manufacturer: "HPE"
      Type: 0x1c (Blade)
      Bootup State: 0x02 (Unknown)
      Power Supply State: 0x02 (Unknown)
      Thermal State: 0x02 (Unknown)
      Security Status: 0x02 (Unknown)
    Chassis Info (Type 3): #165
      Manufacturer: "HPE"
      Version: "G1 0A"
      Serial: "##########" (Physical serial number)
      Type: 0x1d (Blade Enclosure)
      Bootup State: 0x02 (Unknown)
      Power Supply State: 0x02 (Unknown)
      Thermal State: 0x02 (Unknown)
      Security Status: 0x02 (Unknown)
      Height: 10 U
      Power Cords: 6
      SKU: "P06011-B21"

Cause

When dealing with multiple serial numbers on HPE environments, the serial numbers seem to work in the following fashion:

Logical serial number: Correlates with the chassis
Physical serial number: Correlates with the blade

Because there are issues with the record for the blade, then it is not parsed correctly so only one serial number (Logical) is displayed through the environment.

Resolution

VMware by Broadcom adheres to the DMTF BIOS specification. As such, the following should correlate accordingly:

Logical serial number (chassis serial number): Type 1 record

Physical serial number (blade serial number): Type 3 record

If both serial numbers are not displaying, contact your hardware OEM and work with them to validate the BIOS is following the DMTF specification.

Additional Information

DMTF BIOS specification information can be found here:

System Management BIOS (SMBIOS) Reference Specification

Class CIM_System extends CIM_AllocatedLogicalElement