A systems administrator is tasked with upgrading a 10G SFP+ network card in a critical production server to a 40G QSFP+ card. The server's hardware and operating system both fully support hot-swapping of PCIe cards, and the goal is to perform the upgrade with zero downtime. To ensure system stability and prevent data corruption, what is the first software-level action the administrator must perform before physically removing the old card?
Quiesce the card and unbind its driver using operating system utilities.
Install the drivers for the new 40G QSFP+ card.
Log in to the out-of-band management interface to verify component status.
Disconnect the fiber optic cable from the SFP+ transceiver.
The correct procedure for hot-swapping a PCIe card is to first use operating system utilities to prepare the card for removal. This process, often called quiescing the device or safely ejecting hardware, involves stopping the device driver from communicating with the hardware and instructing the OS to cease all operations to that card. This ensures that no active processes are trying to use the card, preventing a system crash (like a Machine Check Exception) or data corruption when it is physically disconnected.
Installing drivers for the new card is a necessary step for the upgrade, but it does not prepare the old card for safe removal.
Disconnecting the fiber optic cable is a good physical step, but it does not inform the operating system that the card is about to be removed, leaving the system vulnerable to a crash.
Using the out-of-band management interface is useful for monitoring the server's status but is not the direct action required to quiesce the card within the OS.