ServeRAID MR10ie Battery Backup Unit (BBU) Features added in 11.0.1-0046 - IBM BladeCenter

Resolving The Problem

Source

RETAIN tip: H204756

Symptom

This tip describes two features added in the 11.0.1-0046 firmware for the ServeRAID-MR10ie (CIOv) Controller for IBM BladeCenter, Option part number 46C7167:

• Dual-Band Charging
• Limited Band Charging

Affected configurations

The system may be any of the following IBM servers:

• BladeCenter HS12, type 1916, any model
• BladeCenter HS12, type 8014, any model
• BladeCenter HS12, type 8028, any model
• BladeCenter HS22, type 1936, any model
• BladeCenter HS22, type 7870, any model
• BladeCenter HS22V, type 1949, any model
• BladeCenter HS22V, type 7871, any model

The system is configured with one or more of the following IBM Options:

• ServeRAID-MR10ie (CIOv) Controller for IBM BladeCenter, Option part number 46C7167, any replacement part number

This tip is not software specific.

The ServeRAID MR10ie Dual-Band Charging Tool utility is affected.

The 11.0.1-0046 firmware for the ServeRAID MR10ie is affected.

Additional information

ServeRAID MR10ie firmware 11.0.1-0046 added two new features important to improve battery life, Dual-Band Charging and Limited Band Charging.

• Dual-Band Charging:
  
  Dual-Band Charging allows the new default 12-hour retention to be switched to 24-hour retention alerting. The new 12-hour alerting extends the overall life of the battery, while still providing adequate retention in case of a power failure. Because some infrastructures may require 24-hours of battery backed-up cache, Dual-Band Charging allows a 24-hour retention alert to be selected. Dual-Band Charging alerts are selected with a new utility, ibm_utl_sraidmr_10ie-bbutool, which is available from IBM Fix Central, at the following URL:
  
  http://www.ibm.com/support/fixcentral/
  
  
• Limited-Band Charging:
  
  Limited-Band Charging extends the overall life of the battery by, rather than keeping the battery at a constant 95-100 percent charge, it instead reduces this to the minimal amount required to safely hold retention for 24-hours. This means a brand new battery may only be charged to around 60 percent total charge. As the battery ages, more of the overall capacity of the battery will be charged. The only times the battery will be fully charged will be during a relearn operation, or when the battery has reached a point where fully charging it is required to hold the required cache data retention.