There are many types of HCA cards, and each has its own firmware version. In most cases, the firmware version is different for single port and dual port cards. By default, the host HCA’s firmware and option ROM are not upgraded during a host driver IPS install.
The Oracle Solaris package does not contain any firmware file. You can get the corresponding version of firmware (if needed) by contacting Oracle Support. After the correct firmware file is downloaded, you can upgrade the HCA firmware natively through the native HCA upgrade tool on each server.
You can upgrade the HCAs through the fwflash tool on the Oracle Solaris host. In addition to upgrading the HCA firmware, fwflash also enables you to query the HCA for available device information. The fwflash tool is available in the Oracle host drivers package. After the host drivers are installed, fwflash is in the /opt/orclovn/bin directory.
Consider the following issues when installing and programming multiple bootable HCAs:
Memory for loading the option ROM from multiple PCI devices is limited. In some cases, memory depletion might be an issue.
Different devices and vendors consume different amounts of option ROM space.
The following adapters can contribute to memory depletion: VGA adapter, SAS or RAID controller, NIC(s), and HCA(s).
There is a possibility that the BIOS will report an error on certain server models indicating the inability to load the option ROM of some devices.
Consider using dual port HCA(s) for high availability configurations instead of two single port HCA(s). If enabling two single port HCA(s) is still preferred, it might be necessary to disable the option ROM on some of the other devices in the server (or the HCA devices themselves).