Installation of Dell EqualLogic MEM 1.0.9 (1.1 EPA) and vSphere 5

So the 1.0.9 version of Dell’s MEM module (ug, that’s as bad as PIN number), scratch that, of Dell’s Multipathing Extension Module for EqualLogic was released last week. I promptly ignored it for a week before reading the line that said “fully supported in production environments” (whoops) and installed it today. It wasn’t easy.

I’ve already upgraded vSphere Centre to version 5, and so I made an install package for MEM 1.0.9 (1.1EPA) – Update Manager then told me that it wasn’t required anywhere, “that can’t be right”, I thought to myself, and then realised that I needed ESXi 5.0 to install MEM; but you can’t install ESXi 5.0 while MEM1.0 (or anything pre 1.0.9) is installed. A little bit of a catch 22.

I then embarked on a whirlwind tour of command line chaos, using PowerShell to create my own installation .iso which combined the ESXi 5.0 install with the Dell MEM bundle, I uploaded that to the Update Manager and used it to upgrade two hosts, and I’m shocked to say that it worked almost perfectly, so, for the simple commands you need to use, see below!

To do all this you’ll need to download and install the vSphere PowerCLI.
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