I had an issue where I had to change out the driver ESXi uses for it’s QLogic fiber channel hbas.  Below is the procedure I used to make the change from the qlnativefc and qla-2xxx driver sets.  I was running ESXi 5.5, but the procedure for other versions is likely similar.

Updating the Qlogic Driver on an ESXi Host

ESXi hosts with Qlogic adapters use the qlnativefc driver out of the box.

On some servers, including Dell PowerEdge R7xx servers, the adapter does not support NPIV without a different driver.  Follow the procedure below to update the driver

Update the Qlogic Driver to an NPIV-enabled Driver

1. Download the qlogic driver for Vmware.

VMware ESXi5.x FC-FCoE Driver for QLogic and OEM-branded Fibre Channel and Converged Network Adapter

https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/details?downloadGroup=DT-ESXI5X-QLOGIC-QLA2XXX-9345320-1VMW&productId=285

Example:  qla2xxx-934.5.38.0-1872208.zip

1. Extract the zip file and find the offine_bundle.zip file if it’s not already extracted.
2. SCP the offline bundle file to a datastore on the ESXi host that all of the other hosts can see.

Example:   /vmfs/volumes/vmware_host_swap_03/qla2xxx-934.5.38.0-offline_bundle-1872208.zip

For each host:

1. Log onto the VM host
2. Put the host in maintenance mode.
3. Do the following:

esxcli software vib install -d /vmfs/volumes/vmware_host_swap_01/qla2xxx-934.5.38.0-offline_bundle-1872208.zip

Remove the old driver

esxcli software vib remove -n qlnativefc

1. Reboot the host
2. Verify after the host is back up:

esxcli software vib list | grep -I qla2xxx

Rolling Back the Driver Upgrade

Vmware QLNativeFC Driver:

https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/details?downloadGroup=DT-ESXI55-QLOGIC-QLNATIVEFC-11390-1&productId=353&download=true&fileId=838e130270df93ad2aca6bd64be27f06&secureParam=&uuId=08b248a1-29dc-4ce5-8da3-6353d2997bce&downloadType=

Example:  VMW-ESX-5.5.0-qlnativefc-1.1.39.0-2243137.zip

1. Extract the zip file and find the offine_bundle.zip file if it’s not already extracted.
2. SCP the offline bundle file to a datastore on the ESXi host that all of the other hosts can see.

Example:   /vmfs/volumes/ah-3270-2:vmware_host_swap_03/VMW-ESX-5.5.0-qlnativefc-1.1.39.0-offline_bundle-2243137.zip

For each host:

1. Log onto the VM host
2. Put the host in maintenance mode.
3. Do the following:

esxcli software vib install -d  /vmfs/volumes/ah-3270-2:vmware_host_swap_03/VMW-ESX-5.5.0-qlnativefc-1.1.39.0-offline_bundle-2243137.zip

1. Remove the old driver

esxcli software vib remove -n scsi-qla2xxx

1. Reboot the host
2. Verify after the host is back up:

esxcli software vib list | grep -i ql