ΒΆ Drivers and firmware
Making driver and firmware recommendations for VMware is the remit of the hardware teams, SST will not assist in this aspect.
In order to check a customer is using the correct firmware for the driver in use, you will need to refer to the VMware Hardware Compatibility List (HCL). To use this resource effectively, it would be recommended that you gather a TSR/SupportAssist Collection in order to obtain the "VID", "DID", "SVID" and "Max SSID" values of the hardware you wish to check are running the correct firmware/driver combinations.
- To obtain the VID, DID, SVID and Max SSID values, open the TSR/SupportAssist
- Scroll down to PCI Devices and click on the one you want to check, in this example I am checking the "QLogic 2x25GE QL41262HMKR CNA"
- Under the "Detail for NIC..." section, there is a subsection titled "Device" one the fields here, contains PCI ID info, in this example "1077:8070:1077:000F", which breaks down as:
| VID | DID | SVID | Max SSID |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1077 | 8070 | 1077 | 000F |
- We can then put these values in the VMware Compatibility Guide and we can also filter for a specific version of ESXi, in this case 7.0 U1.
- Click "Update and View Results"
- Scroll down to see the results and click on the link under "Model"
- You can now see what VMware minimum supported driver and firmware combinations are.
- If this is expanded out, a link will be provided to allow the customer to download the driver.
The drivers are provided by the manufacturer, e.g. Dell