Requirements:

  1. [Critical] No interruption of power supply to the server(s) during the BIOS upgrade process

  2. Dell Remote Access Controller (DRAC) interface configured and available. For steps to setup DRAC - see article 170487.

  3. Contact Axway Global Support for the latest custom BIOS version for your appliance model.

NOTE:  Starting with Dell x800 models (R620 \ 12G), Axway does not maintain custom BIOS releases and any upgrades can be directly obtained from Dell.

Installation Process for Axway Custom BIOS on Axway Appliances.

Backout plan:

I.   Background

     BIOS upgrade failure might occur in extremely rare situation provided that there is no interruption of power during the flashing process. Failure during the latter could be possible in case of physical failure of the rewriteable memory where the BIOS is stored (EEPROM chip) or aborted sequence. EEPROM chips are pretty advantageous because they could be easily updated by the user; hardware manufacturers frequently issue BIOS updates to upgrade their products, improve compatibility and remove bugs.

     However, this advantage had the risk that an improperly executed or aborted BIOS update could render the computer or device unusable. To avoid these situations, more recent BIOSes use a "boot block"; a portion of the BIOS which runs first and must be updated separately. This code verifies if the rest of the BIOS is intact (using hash checksums or other methods) before transferring control to it. If the boot block detects any corruption in the main BIOS, it will typically warn the user that a recovery process must be initiated by booting from removable media (floppy, CD or USB memory) so the user can try flashing the BIOS again.

II.   Recovery process

          Dell BIOS upgrade utility checks the version and check sum of the new bios before it proceeds. If the new bios version is equal or newer, and the check sum is good, it saves the copy of the current bios image before flashing the new one. If for whatever reason the flashing of the new bios is not success, it will flash back the old bios automatically. However, if the failure is due to power cutoff, for whatever reason, during the flashing process, then we just can’t predict what the state of bios will be. In the worst case, the mother board might have to be replaced. In case the BIOS upgrade to the new version fails but the box can properly boot with the old BIOS version, applying the BIOS upgrade to the new version should be retried.
    If the BIOS upgrade process persistently fails, it may indicate a physical failure of the EEPROM chip so it would require replacement of the motherboard. Still, such failure is extremely low in probability. As part of the process, Axway Support will need the Service Tag (ST#) of the appliance – a 7-alphanumeric number that can be located at the top right side of the box just above the screw bolt and\or at the back panel.

NOTE:  Considering that motherboard replacement is required, there is no data loss as the server’s hard disks can be moved onto the new motherboard and re-establish the same RAID configuration using it.