ESXi upgrade pre-check warnings in SDDC manager for Hardware and Firmware Compatibility

Products

• VMware SDDC Manager / VCF Installer

Issue/Introduction

• When performing ESXi upgrade pre-checks via SDDC Manager for a cluster, the following warnings are reported:

The Image has hardware compatibility issues. check hardware compatibility for more details

Firmware information is unavailable without a Hardware Support Manager configured as part of the cluster's image. Firmware compatibility must be verified manually

HBA355i front: Device is incompatible with the driver/firmware in cluster's image

Environment

VMware SDDC Manager 5.x

Cause

A Hardware Support Manager (HSM) is not configured in the environment. An HSM is a software solution provided by the hardware vendor used to fetch firmware details. Without it, the pre-check cannot validate if the driver in the image is compatible with the firmware.

Resolution

Hardware compatibility must be verified manually:

• Retrieve the driver and firmware details of the storage adapter by following the steps in Determining Network/Storage Firmware and Driver Version
• Validate the compatibility of the retrieved driver and firmware versions against the vSAN Compatibility Guide to ensure they are supported for the target ESXi version

Additional Information

Deploying and Configuring Hardware Support Managers