Managing Dell PowerEdge Servers Using the Dell … Operations Manager The Dell ™ Management Pack for Microsoft ® Operations Manager is a software module designed to provide specific
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selecting “Run Computer Discovery Now.” For more information
about creating computer discovery rules, refer to MOM docu-
mentation at www.microsoft.com/mom/techinfo/productdoc.
Once the scan is completed, all systems with OMSA installed
are grouped under the Dell Computers group.
Monitoring and managing Dell serversThe Dell MP monitors and manages the Dell servers that are grouped
in the Dell Computers group. The management pack provides a list
of public views to help administrators monitor and manage the Dell
systems in the network.
Dell state viewThe Dell MP provides a Dell-specific state view reflecting the health
of each Dell server managed by MOM. To view the Dell state view,
administrators should open the MOM Operator console, which is
used to monitor system health, view problems, and obtain recom-
mended resolutions. In the MOM Operator console, administrators
can click the State tab in the bottom left pane. This shows the
state views of all imported management packs. Expanding “Dell
OpenManage” in the State Views tree shows the Dell state view
(see Figure 3).
The Dell state view shows the status of each Dell hardware
component. State changes are triggered by the MOM alert infrastruc-
ture.1 The component status is designated by colors—red, yellow,
and green—that represent the level of alert severity. The health of
a component is derived by reviewing its non-resolved alerts. The
status becomes the severity level of the most severe, non-resolved
alert that has an active problem. If a component is not present in a
specific server, its status is shown as white. To set the state for the
Dell MP, the Dell service discovery script should run at least once
and discovery instances of Dell servers should exist.
The Dell state view is based on roles and components. Dell
agents represent the role, and the hardware components are the
parts of the role that sum up the global health for that particular
role. The health of any Dell server is dependent on its components’
global health.
Hardware component status is updated whenever an event is
sent by the managed node instrumentation service to the Windows
Event Log. Server status can also be updated by administrative
action. To update the status, administrators can select a server and
click the “Update status” task that appears on the right pane of the
MOM Operator console.
Updating the Dell state view based on events. The Dell
state view is updated whenever a Dell event occurs. The Dell
agents generate an event when a hardware component changes
its status. The Dell MP has an event-processing rule to update
the status of the components in the state view. This event-
processing rule calls a Dell script, which is then executed locally
on the managed node using the local system account. The script
queries the global status of the individual components. Based
on the status, the script generates an event for each component.
Another event-processing rule processes this script-generated
event and generates the state-based alert for updating the state
view. Figure 4 shows the steps taken to update the state view
when an event is generated.
Figure 3. Dell state view
Figure 4. Updating the Dell state view using events
Dellagent
MOM Operatorconsole: State view
MOM ScriptingLibrary
MOM Agent–Dell PRG
WindowsEvent Log
1. Send an event
2. Process all events with EventSource=“Server Administrator” || “VxSVC*”
3. Execute the Dell script for all events with Event Source=“Server Administrator” || “VxSVC*”
4. Run the OMSA command-line interface (CLI) to query the global status health
5. Return the global status health
6. Parse the global health string from the OMSA CLI return value
7. Generate an internal event with severity=”Global status health”
8. Generate an alert with severity=”Event severity”
9. Update the state view
The Dell instrumentation (OMSA, Array Manager, and OMSA Storage Management) generates events, and in turn, the Dell MP issues alerts upon receipt of Dell events.
For a DRAC launch point to be present, a DRAC card and the
DRAC agent must be installed and running on all the Dell servers
that are managed by MOM. If a DRAC is installed, administra-
tors must install the DRAC agent using the Dell OpenManage
Systems Management CD for OMSA versions 1.6 to 1.9 or the
Dell PowerEdge Installation
and Server Management CD for
OMSA versions 2.0 and later.
During installation, adminis-
trators should select Managed
Node>DRAC Agent.
Each Dell event-processing
rule is associated with the
VBScript-based Dell RAC Con-
sole Launch custom script.
This script queries Dell man-
aged systems for the remote
access card URL and appends
the URL to the alert descrip-
tion. Administrators can click
the URL to launch the DRAC Web interface, then log in to the
DRAC console and remotely manage the server.2
Sending notifications to the hardware support group For all critical and warning alerts generated by Dell OpenManage
Server Administrator (including OMSA Storage Management)
and Array Manager events, a notification message is sent to the
hardware support notification group. Information events are not
processed and hence the hardware support group is not notified
about the informational events that are issued from Dell servers.
System administrators must be added as operators to this hardware
support group to be notified by either e-mail or pager whenever a
critical or warning alert is generated.
Customizing the Dell Management PackThe Dell MP can be customized to suit a managed environment.
This section describes two example scenarios for customizing the
Dell MP: creating a Dell OpenManage task to launch the OMSA
Web interface and customizing the Dell state view to display the
status of MOM Agents and the MOM Server.
Scenario 1: Creating a Dell OpenManage task Administrators can easily launch the OMSA Web interface by directly
launching it as a task. To do so, they must create a new task under
Dell OpenManage:
1. Open the MOM Administrator console.
2. Go to Management Packs>Tasks>Dell OpenManage.
3. Right-click on “Dell OpenManage” and select “Create
Task” from the pop-up menu. The Create Task wizard
should launch.
4. After the welcome screen of the Create Task wizard appears,
click the Next button.
5. Select “Operator Console” as the “Run” location and
“Command-line” as the task type. Click the Next button.
6. Select “Computers” as the view type (this enables the task to
be executed when any computer is selected from the MOM
Operator console).
7. Under “Task command line,” enter the binary path of the
active Web browser installed on the system. For example, if
Figure 10. Creating a task to launch Dell OpenManage Server Administrator
2 For more information about remotely managing servers using Dell Remote Access Controllers, refer to the DRAC user guides available at support.dell.com/support/edocs/software/smdrac3.
Figure 9. Launching the DRAC Web interface from MOM 2005
within the managed environment, the Dell Management Pack for
Microsoft Operations Manager is designed to extend the capabili-
ties of MOM 2005. The Dell MP can help enterprise IT organiza-
tions using MOM 2005 enhance the monitoring and management
of their Dell systems. Furthermore, IT administrators can custom-
ize the Dell MP to suit a data center’s specific needs.
Balasubramaniam J. is a senior engineering analyst at Dell. With more than five years of experience in systems management applications, Bala currently works as a lead engineer for Dell OpenManage Connection. He has a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering from Madras University in India and a master’s degree in Software Systems from the Birla Institute of Technology in Pilani, India.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Dell OpenManage:www.dell.com/openmanage
Dell Management Pack for Microsoft Operations Manager User’s Guide:support.dell.com/support/edocs/software/smdmpac/2.0/ug/ug.pdf