Managing the Dell PowerEdge VRTX Chassis with Dell OpenManage Essentials OME Engineering Team
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Managing the Dell PowerEdge VRTX Chassis with Dell OpenManage Essentials Contents Executive Summary................................................................................................... 4 I. Setup of PowerEdge VRTX for Management................................................................ 4 a. Setup in a Datacenter ......................................................................................... 4 b. Setup in a Remote Office ....................................................
Managing the Dell PowerEdge VRTX Chassis with Dell OpenManage Essentials Executive Summary The PowerEdge VRTX chassis is a new and innovative approach on an established theme … bringing together server, networking, and storage in a compact package, while allowing for the expansion of storage and processing power as needs grow. No longer is the blades (referred to as server nodes in VRTX) concept limited to the Datacenter … now it can exist in any office anywhere.
Managing the Dell PowerEdge VRTX Chassis with Dell OpenManage Essentials For the server nodes in the chassis, a similar setup is recommended if using the iDRAC for management: WS-Man is the protocol of choice for retrieving information, while SNMP traps are used for asynchronous alerting. If managing through the Operating System is an option, OpenManage Server Administrator (OMSA) can also be used with the recommended SNMP protocol used for both synchronous and asynchronous communication. b.
Managing the Dell PowerEdge VRTX Chassis with Dell OpenManage Essentials environment. See the OME users guide for system and operating system requirements. OME is a two-tier application: the services tier, which does all communication to the VRTX system, and the UI tier, which communicates to the OME services tier. It is strongly recommended that the services tier sits behind a firewall, along with any other remote devices OME must monitor and manage.
Managing the Dell PowerEdge VRTX Chassis with Dell OpenManage Essentials TIP: DLM only uses the WS-Man protocol to discover and push licenses to remote systems; when discovering systems through DLM, make sure to use the iDRAC IP Address and not the Operating System IP Address(es). Note: To use the new Map View feature in OME, the VRTX chassis must have an Enterprise license. Refer to the new license report in OME to assure that your managed chassis has an Enterprise license. IV.
Managing the Dell PowerEdge VRTX Chassis with Dell OpenManage Essentials You can also group these IP Address(es) into a discovery range group by using the Add Discovery Range Group Task at the same location in the UI. Should you have reliable DNS services and/or using DHCP to assign IP Address(es) to your managed devices, using hostnames instead of IP Address(es) is also allowed. The hostnames/IP Address(es) of the CMC, server node iDRACs, and server node Operating Systems can all be entered, if desired.
Managing the Dell PowerEdge VRTX Chassis with Dell OpenManage Essentials TIP: Do not repeat IP Address(es) in different discovery ranges with different protocols enabled and setup (for example: SNMP in one and WS-Man in another). To do so could result in periodic mis-representation of that device in OME. Should an IP Address need its own discovery range due to unique credentials for at least one protocol, all other protocols wanted should be setup for that IP Address in the same discovery range.
Managing the Dell PowerEdge VRTX Chassis with Dell OpenManage Essentials Figure 2: WS-Man setup screen for a discovery range. TIP: The SNMP protocol can also be enabled along with WS-Man. OME will automatically select the protocol that provides the best management (WS-Man in this case). Unlike WS-Man, multiple community name credentials can be entered for SNMP, separated by commas, if desired.
Managing the Dell PowerEdge VRTX Chassis with Dell OpenManage Essentials Figure 3: Device Tree showing a VRTX group and its components. To see all the shared components of the chassis, including the shared storage and PCI cards, click the CMC node in the tree. See Figure 4 for some of the new information shown for the chassis.
Managing the Dell PowerEdge VRTX Chassis with Dell OpenManage Essentials Figure 4: Chassis summary screen. V. Monitoring of VRTX Monitoring of the VRTX chassis is more important than ever before, as it will also roll-up the status of the shared storage components (controller and drives). Many new defined storage events that are emitted by the chassis controller will be recognized by OME v1.
Managing the Dell PowerEdge VRTX Chassis with Dell OpenManage Essentials now provides the Hardware Logs tab for the VRTX chassis node in the device tree – this tab should contain the same log as the Chassis Log tab in the CMC GUI and is retrieved in real time. While this can give you a summary of the hardware events, storage events and configuration changes for the chassis, it is recommended to launch the CMC GUI and view the detailed logs there.
Managing the Dell PowerEdge VRTX Chassis with Dell OpenManage Essentials Figure 5: Map View in OME Prerequisites: • Device must be a VRTX with enterprise license only • Device must be discovered and inventoried using WS-Man • Internet connection required for zoom to street level and address lookup • User must input device locations to view them on the map Adding devices to the map can be accomplished multiple ways: • Add device at the click location on the map (right click -> ‘Add Licensed Device
Managing the Dell PowerEdge VRTX Chassis with Dell OpenManage Essentials • Add multiple devices by importing. (right click -> ‘Import Licensed Devices’) The map pin representing the device contains summary information (tooltip) about the device and can be used to initiate several actions on the device. When viewing the map view in the device portal, selecting the device updates all tabs in the portal to be specific to that device, so you can instantly see the inventory, alerts, etc., from one click.
Managing the Dell PowerEdge VRTX Chassis with Dell OpenManage Essentials pull the package – the appropriate port has to open to allow remote communication back to the OME services box. When scheduling updates, it is important to include the VRTX chassis, and to actually update it first before any server nodes. OME will update the chassis first if it happens to be included in the list of devices to update (which may include server nodes).
Managing the Dell PowerEdge VRTX Chassis with Dell OpenManage Essentials Figure 6: Workflow of updating the chassis and server nodes.
Managing the Dell PowerEdge VRTX Chassis with Dell OpenManage Essentials VIII. Troubleshooting / FAQs Troubleshooting Map View Question: Why is the Map View feature not available? Answer: The Map View feature is available only if you have discovered any Dell PowerEdge VRTX CMC with an Enterprise license, using the WS-Man protocol. If the PowerEdge VRTX CMC with an Enterprise license is discovered using the SNMP protocol, the Map View feature is not available.
Managing the Dell PowerEdge VRTX Chassis with Dell OpenManage Essentials Question: Why is the map loading slowly? Answer: The map may load slowly as it requires more network bandwidth and graphic processing capability compared to normal browsing. Constant zooming and panning on the map may also slow the loading of the map. For MapQuest, map performance is impacted by both the connection between the OME client and the OME Server and between the OME server and the MapQuest servers.
Managing the Dell PowerEdge VRTX Chassis with Dell OpenManage Essentials Question: How can I enhance the Map View experience? Answer: Improving the network bandwidth will accelerate the loading of the map. A more powerful graphic card will enable faster zooming and panning capability. The Bing provider offers faster load times, an aerial view, and more consistent search results for things like abbreviations and airport codes.
