Here's a new BladeSystem best-practices whitepaper on the topic of firmware: HP BladeSystem ProLiant firmware management best practices

It talks about different scenarios for firmware maintenance (like local vs. remote, online vs. offline), and goes over doing whole-enclosure as well as single-component updates.

Some of the highlights:

• Always align firmware versions with one of the columns of the HP BladeSystem Compatibility Chart (click on the "Compatibility" tab).
• Bare-metal deployment should use the HP BladeSystem Firmware Deployment Tool – Offline for unattended installation and HP Firmware Maintenance CD for attended installations.
• Updates to existing servers should use the HP BladeSystem Firmware Update Bundles for Windows and Linux.
• Most firmware can be updated with individual smart components, but the recommended deployment tool is HP System Update Manager (HP SUM), which includes a discovery engine and dependancy checkers.