HP ProLiant Gen8 BIOS settings for VMware ESXi

Question

What BIOS settings should be set on a HP BL460c Gen8 server so that ESXi 5.5 runs correctly?

Solution 1

I have BL460c G1, and I simply use standard settings, but ensure Intel VT technologies, and Execute Disable Bit, or INTEL TXT (if you have) are enabled, they are madatory for ESXi 5.5

Solution 2

The defaults will do what you need without issue...
That is, there's nothing in the default configuration that would preclude proper operation of vSphere 5.5.

You may want to modify a few other BIOS settings, depending on your workload and usage patterns:

• Power Management: My applications care about latency, so I tend to disable the power and CPU-scaling features.
• SR-IOV: If you have hardware or a situation where you need it.
• Memory Speed: Using a Gen8, you likely have Authenticated Smart Memory. You'll want to boost the maximum memory frequency.

Comments

[DarkMoon]

I don't know about "best", but I know we use DL360s and DL380s exclusively (10+ in a cluster at our datacentre) on ESXi 5.1 and we don't touch the BIOS; it just works well as-is. I seem to remember something years ago about having to go in and enable the virtualization component at the time (ESX 3.5 days), but not lately.