6 Table of Contents

ProLiant system and environmental events...112 ProLiant storage events....112 Failed host recovery....114 Setting up the recovery feature....114 Creating a CriticalVmHost collection....115 Setting the alternate virtual machine host...115 Scheduling the recovery of virtual machines of failed hosts...115 Launching SCVMM.....117 Microsoft Virtual Server Host System page....117 Microsoft Virtual Server Guest System page....118 Launching VC.....118 VMware ESX Server Host System page...118 VMware ESX Server Guest System page...118 VirtualCenter information....119 Configuring Virtual Machine Management Pack on a Microsoft Cluster Server..120 Configuring Virtual Machine Management Pack on an HP integrated Citrix XenServer resource pool.120 Considerations on VMM-enabled and HA-enabled resource pool:...120 Configuring Virtual Machine Management Pack for Hyper-V hosts Microsoft failover cluster..120 Multisystem aware tools available....121 Performance information.....121 Displaying virtual machine host performance information...121 Virtual machine host performance....121 Virtual machine performance....122 Displaying virtual machine guest performance...123 Virtual machine performance....123 Resource allocation.....123 Performance color codes.....124 Virtual Machine Management Pack infrastructure...124

7 Reporting....125

Reporting in HP SIM....125 Software inventory details....126 Printing reports....126 Sample PMP CSV file.....126 PMP measurement categories....127 Servers.....127 Servers with MSVS or VMware GSX (VM Host)...127 Servers with VMware ESX (VM Host)....128 VM guest....128 Smart Array controllers....128 Smart Array logical drives....129 Smart Array physical arrays...129 SCSI buses attached to Smart Array controllers....129 Fibre Channel host bus adapters....129 Fibre Channel enclosures....129 SCSI adapters....130 SCSI buses attached to SCSI adapters....130 SCSI drives attached to SCSI adapters....130 IDE controllers....130 Network adapters....130 Host buses....131 Sample PMP system summary report....131 System summary report for a server or MSVS/VMware GSX Host..131 System summary report for a VMware ESX Host...132 System summary report for a VM Guest....133 Overall PMP performance....134 Sample PMP Static Analysis report....135 Sample PMP Server Availability report....135

Table of Contents 7

Viewing patch installation status...135 Viewing patch installation status by patch....136 Viewing patch installation status by search filter...136 Viewing patch installation status by system...136

8 Troubleshooting...137

General troubleshooting....137 General installation issues....137 ASP.NET 1.1 installation error....139 IIS error message appears during installation...139 Applying and assigning HP Insight Software suite licenses from HP SIM license manager..140 HP Insight Software licensing menus do not appear...140 Verifying environment functionality with Insight Software Advisor...140 HP Insight Software installation does not accept username, but password is already accepted by HP SIM.140 Updating passwords.....140 Uninstalling HP Insight Software...141 Vulnerability and Patch Management Pack troubleshooting...142 VPM installation and configuration....142 Viewing VPM installation logs....142 VPM installation updates MDAC and MSDE...142 An error occurs when installing MSDE files from a Remote Desktop session..142 STAT Scanner WSI Requires IWAM and IUSR error occurs during VPM installation..142 Installation fails with Product RMS not installed: Service RMS error. The specified service does not exist as an installed service (0x424) message...143 VPM installation fails.....143 Cannot modify VPM acquisition settings to acquire updates from a local repository..143 Required open ports....143 Modifying firewall configuration settings...144 Configuring a DNS server....144 All target systems do not have the same administrator credentials..145 Multiple VPM servers.....145 Administrator credentials have been changed...145 Uninstalling Vulnerability and Patch Management...145 Remaining VPM files.....146 Reinstalling VPM....146 Vulnerability scans....146 Vulnerability and Patch Management cannot access target systems..146 Windows.....147 Windows XP....147 Linux target systems....147 Scan reports cannot be viewed....147 A scan was submitted but never started....147 Scan results are inaccurate because of overlapping tasks...147 Current patch information is not displayed in scan reports..148 Patches and configuration fixes....148 VPM Patch Agent installation fails....148 A patch acquisition was started, but no patches are seen...148 HTTP 300 errors received during patch acquisition..149 Patches appear in a scan report but are not successfully deployed..149 Check for missing patches....149 Validating VPM Patch Agent installation....149 Patch installation status reports are not current or do not match information that appears in scan reports....149 Other tools report that a Windows system is patched, but Vulnerability and Patch Management reports patches needed....150 Patch source for vendor patches is Microsoft or Red Hat..150 Multiple events listed in HP SIM for patch deployments...150 STAT Scanner update error listed in the HP SIM event log..150

HP Insight Control Environment Suites Release Notes HP Insight Control Environment Suites Support Matrix HP Insight Control Environment Suites User Guide HP Insight Software Installation Checklist HP Insight Software Installation and Configuration Guide HP Insight Software Quick Setup Poster
Use the Documentation tab from the Autorun screen on Insight Software DVD #1 for individual documentation for each component. HP Systems Insight Manager website at http://www.hp.com/go/hpsim
HP Systems Insight Manager Installation and Configuration Guide for HP-UX HP Systems Insight Manager Installation and Configuration Guide for Linux HP Systems Insight Manager Installation and Configuration Guide for Microsoft Windows HP Systems Insight Manager User Guide Quick Start Guide
HP BladeSystem Integrated Manager in HP Systems Insight Manager website at http:// h18013.www1.hp.com/products/servers/management/bsme/index.html HP BladeSystem c-Class Firmware & Upgrades at http://www.hp.com/go/bladesystemupdates HP Insight Power Manager website at http://www.hp.com/go/ipm
Insight Power Manager User Guide Insight Power Manager Installation and Configuration Guide Insight Power Manager Support Matrix Insight Power Manager ReadMe
HP iLO 2 Advanced Pack and iLO 2 Advanced for BladeSystem website at http://www.hp.com/ go/ilo
HP Insight Rapid Deployment software website at http://www.hp.com/go/rdp
HP Insight Rapid Deployment Software User Guide
HP website at http://www.hp.com/servers/rdp/kb (Regularly updated troubleshooting information, frequently asked questions, and specific how-to procedures are available on this site.)
Component HP Performance Management Pack and HP Vulnerability and Patch Management Pack
Document Documentation is incorporated into HP Insight Control Environment Suites documentation.
HP Virtual Machine Management Pack
HP Virtual Machine Management Pack website at http://www.hp.com/go/vmmanage
HP Virtual Machine Management Pack Release Notes HP Virtual Machine Management Pack Support Matrix HP Virtual Machine Management Pack User Guide

1 Introduction

This chapter provides an overview of HP Insight Control Environment (ICE) suites provided on the Insight Software DVDs, and describes the features, benefits, and functionality delivered with these integrated software solutions.

Key benefits for HP Insight Control Environment Suites
Build on proven HP SIM and Insight Essentials software Simplify infrastructure lifecycle management Unify resource management through a single console Enable rapid and consistent server deployment using predefined scripts or system images Securely control remote or headless systems at any time, independent of the operating system state

Introduction

Optimize server performance and configuration to exacting requirements with real-time monitoring Reduce power consumption costs without sacrificing performance Protects your systems from vulnerabilities with proactive patch management Manages your physical and virtual servers in the same exact way, in a single display
For complete information and licensing options for HP Insight Control Environment, see the HP Insight software website at http://www.hp.com/go/insight.

Licensing

HP Insight Control Environment and Insight Essentials software licenses deliver license entitlement certificates in place of license activation keys. Part numbers that delivered license activation keys by physical shipment in the past now deliver license entitlement certificates by physical shipment. Part numbers for electronic licenses will deliver the license entitlement certificates online. The license entitlement certificate directs you to http://www.webware.hp.com and contains the information to redeem your license activation keys online or by fax. The electronic redemption process enables you to easily manage your license activation keys. You can store or share license activation keys electronically, which not only supports the HP environment-friendly approach but also offers you the convenience of not having to file or discard confidential paper licenses. In addition the license activation keys can be printed. The electronic redemption process enables HP to automatically register you for Software Technical Support and Update Services (if included in the product purchased), eliminating an extra step. The integrated installer must be run to install the HP Insight software licensing capabilities for these suites. To apply license keys, see "Licensing HP Insight Control Environment Suites " in this guide. If you manage Integrity servers running HP-UX, you might not need to purchase licenses for some system setups, but you can still take advantage of HP Insight Control Environment ease of installation and configuration of HP SIM. If you manage Integrity servers running Windows or Linux, you can purchase licenses for the HP Insight Rapid Deployment software for operating system deployment while taking advantage of HP Insight Control Environment integrated installation.

Purchased license. To obtain this license file, follow the instructions on your license entitlement certificate. 10-node, 30-day evaluation license. To obtain this license file, access http://www.hp.com/servers/rdp/eval. 10-node, 7-day evaluation license. This license is built into the Deployment Server.
Applying a license file during a first-time installation or upgrade
A 10-node, 7-day evaluation license is built into the deployment server. To apply this license during a first-time installation, on the Deployment Share Information screen, select Free 7 day license. To apply a purchased or evaluation license file, enter the path to the license file in the License File field during the installation on the Deployment Share Information screen.
Adding a license file to an existing installation
1. 2. 3. 4. Shut down all Deployment Server Consoles and Deployment Server Web Consoles. Click Start>Programs>Altiris>Deployment Solution>Product Licensing Utility. Enter the path to the new license file in the Activation Key File Information field, and click Next. Follow the instructions to apply your additional licenses.
Replacing licenses in an existing installation
If you have combined or transferred licenses and have obtained a new license file, to replace your existing license file follow the steps above for adding a license file. On the third wizard step, select Replace all existing license Activation Keys with this new Activation Key.
Adding iLO 2 Advanced license keys
The Licensing page enables you to view the current license status and enter a key to activate iLO 2 Advanced licensed features. Use the same procedure to activate the iLO 2 Advanced or iLO 2 Advanced for BladeSystem. To add an Advanced license key: 1. 2. 3. Log in to iLO 2 through a supported browser. Click the Administration tab. Click Licensing. The iLO 2 license activation screen appears.
Enter the license key in the spaces provided. Press Tab or click inside a box to move between boxes. The Activation key box advances as you enter data. Click Licensing to clear the boxes and reload the page. Click Install. Click OK.
To create a script that enables licenses to be pushed from a central point and to update and activate the license key, enter the following from the command line interface: set / map1 license=1234500000678910000000001 You can also perform other license operations, such as Show and Delete, and use the command line interface with SSH. IMPORTANT: Within the iLO 2 interface, AdministrationSNMP/Insight Manager Settings, make sure the Level of Data Returned is set to Enabled. This setting enables HP SIM to discover the remote management processor and to associate the device with the host server. After you apply a license on the iLO 2, you must remotely collect the iLO2 licenses onto the CMS. 1. Navigate to the HP SIM License Manager. In HP SIM, select DeployLicense Manager. 2. Click Collect Remote Licenses Info. 3. Select your iLO 2. 4. Click Apply, and then click Next. 5. (Optional) If the iLO 2 credentials require an update: a. Click Update Credentials. b. Enter the credentials, and click OK. c. Click Retry.

Configuring Insight Power Manager options 43
The Default Integrated Lights Out Settings section enables you to configure a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) port number and provide login credentials for up to five managed systems. The following options are available. The settings are global and affect all users: Default SSL PortEnter the SSL port number to be used by IPM to communicate with iLO 2. The default is 443. User NameEnter the user names used to connect to the iLO 2 for the managed systems. You can enter up to five user name and password pairs in the Default 1-5 boxes. PasswordEnter the password for the previously named managed system iLO 2. Confirm passwordRe-enter the password for the iLO 2 of the managed system exactly as you entered it in the Password box.
NOTE: IPM tests each name and password pair on managed systems until it successfully accesses power data. 5. The Default Power Regulator Data Expiration Settings section enables you to configure how long to keep historical data. In the first Remove data older than list, select the time to be selected in the second list. For example, you can select Remove data older than 6 Month(s). All data that is 6 months or older is removed permanently. 6. To save your settings, click Apply.
Using the iLO browser interface
The iLO 2 browser interface enables easy access to daily tasks through a selection of tabs. Each tab groups similar tasks for easy navigation and work flow. Typical tabs used are System Status, Remote Console, and Virtual Devices.
Using the System Status tab
The System Status tab displays the following options: SummaryThe Summary tab displays high-level details about the system and iLO 2 subsystems and links to commonly used features. System InformationThe System Information tab displays the health of the monitored system. Many features necessary to operate and manage the components of HP ProLiant servers migrated from the health driver to the iLO 2 microprocessor. System Information SummaryThe System Information Summary tab displays the state of monitored host-platform subsystems status at a glance, summarizing the condition of all the monitored subsystems, including overall status and redundancy (the ability to handle a failure). The subsystems can include fans, temperature sensors, power supplies, and voltage regulator modules. FansiLO 2, working with additional hardware, controls the operation and speed of the fans. Fans provide essential cooling of components to ensure reliability and proper operation. TemperaturesThe Temperatures tab displays the location, status, temperature, and threshold settings of temperatures sensors in the server chassis. The temperature is monitored to maintain the location temperature below the caution threshold. If one or more sensors exceed this threshold, iLO 2 implements the recovery policy to prevent damage to server components. PowerThe VRMs/Power Supplies tab displays the state of each VRM (voltage regulator module) or power supply. VRMs are required for each processor in the system. VRMs adjust the power to meet the needs of the processor supported. A VRM can be replaced if it fails. A failed VRM prevents the processor from being supported. ProcessorsThe Processors tab displays the available processor slots, the type of processor installed in each slot, and a brief status summary of the processor subsystem. If available, installed processor speed (in MHz) and cache capabilities appear. MemoryThe Memory tab displays the available memory slots and the type of memory (if any) installed in the slot.

Viewing vulnerability scan results by scan system
1. 2. 3. Select DiagnoseVulnerability and Patch ManagementScanView Results by System. Select individual system for which to view scan results, and click Apply. Verify that the correct target systems appear in the lists, and click Next. If you need to reselect the target systems, click Add Targets or Remove Targets, verify the target systems, and then click Next.
Results for all scans performed on the selected system appear. 4. Select the scan results to view, and click View.
Customizing vulnerability scan definitions
You can create custom scans from the default system scans. Custom scans are updated automatically with the corresponding vulnerability updates when the default system scans are updated. To customize the provided vulnerability scans or previously created custom vulnerability scans: 1. 2. Select DiagnoseVulnerability and Patch ManagementCustomize Scan. Select a default system scan or a previously created custom scan to modify, and then click Edit. A list of vulnerabilities appears. Clicking the entry in either the Vulnerability ID or Advisory column displays additional information about the vulnerability. Select one or more vulnerabilities to include in the custom scan definition. Enter a name and description for the new customized scan, and click Save. You must rename the customized vulnerability scan. You cannot save a modified default Vulnerability and Patch Management scan using the original scan name. You can delete only custom vulnerability scans. You cannot delete the default system scans provided with VPM. To delete a customized scan: 1. 2. 3. Select DiagnoseVulnerability and Patch ManagementCustomize Scan. Select the custom vulnerability scan to delete, and click Delete. To confirm the deletion, click OK when prompted.

Deleting scan results

Vulnerability and Patch Management scan results can be deleted for a specified scan or for an individual system. Removing results breaks the links to the results in the events and the system list. Run another scan to create new results for the system.
Deleting scan results by scan name
1. 2. Select DiagnoseVulnerability and Patch ManagementScanView Results by Scan Name. Select the appropriate scan or scans, and then click Delete. All results associated with the selected scan are deleted.
Deleting scan results by system
1. 2. 3. 4. Select DiagnoseVulnerability and Patch ManagementScanView Results by System. Select the individual system for which you want to delete the results from, and then click Apply. Verify that the correct target systems appear in the lists. To reselect target systems, click Add Targets or Remove Targets, and then click Next. Results from all scans performed on the selected system appear. Select the scan results to delete, and then click Delete.

102 Using HP Virtual Machine Management Pack
For a VMware Server or Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 virtual machine, if the virtual machine is powered up, then the guest is suspended for the duration of the backup and resumed after the backup completes. By default, the backup data is compressed. For a VMware ESX server virtual machine that is powered up, choose one of the following: Perform the backup while the virtual machine is running. During the backup operation, disk changes are written to a new redo log and applied when the backup completes. Pause the virtual machine for the duration of the backup operation and resume processing when the backup completes. By default, the backup is compressed.
9. Select Do not automatically delete backups or Maximum backups to retain. 10. Click Next. 1 Verify the backup details, and then click Schedule or Run Now. 1. If other operations such as a copy are in progress, then a backup is not performed immediately. The backup is queued to run after any pending operations are complete. If you unregister a virtual machine host, then it is no longer managed by Virtual Machine Management Pack, and the backup information for the virtual machine guest associated with that host are permanently removed. The backup files, including disk files, are retained in the designated location. You can manually delete them. NOTE: Virtual Machine Management Pack stores the backup for a virtual machine in HP integrated Citrix XenServer as a template with the name prefixed with hpbackup#.
Restoring a virtual machine guest backup
Verify sufficient free space equal to the size of the virtual machine is available before restoring a virtual machine backup on HP integrated Citrix XenServer. For Xen on RHEL or SLES, you cannot restore a virtual machine backup. For Hyper-V: Information for data transfer size, transfer rate, and estimated time for transfer is not available on the user interface. Virtual machines are suspended automatically before a backup is performed. Only the virtual machine files in the virtual machine path are copied. Hot backup is not supported.
The entry in the Estimated Transfer Time field is used to calculate the time required to transfer the virtual machine files from the backup location to the target host. This time might vary from the Actual Time taken since there are configuration durations which are not included in the Estimated Transfer Time. Virtual Machine Management Pack enables you to restore a virtual machine guest using a previously created backup. When you perform the following procedure, the selected backup is restored to the virtual machine. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. From the HP SIM toolbar, select DeployVirtual MachineBackups Restore Virtual Machine from Backup. Select the backup image, and then click Next. From the list of authorized licensed hosts, select the virtual machine host. Verify that adequate available disk space exists on the target virtual machine host to accommodate the total transport volume, which consists of several disks and configuration files. Select a location for the configuration file and virtual machine drives on the designated host, and then click Next. Verify the restore details, and click Run Now, or to restore the backup later, click Schedule.

Servers with MSVS or VMware GSX (VM Host)
The following tables lists the measurement categories for Microsoft Virtual Server (MSVS) and VMware GSX hosts
Sample time Server performance Processor performance Average processor busy Processor busy Interrupts per second Page faults per second Page reads per second Available Megabytes NIC performance NIC Megabytes per second Storage performance
Context switches per second Memory performance Hard page faults per second Pages input per second Average Physical Processor Busy Available MB Storage Megabytes per second
Storage transfers per second Storage Megabytes per second PCI performance Host bus Megabytes per second Average Virtual Processor busy Network Megabytes per second
Servers with VMware ESX (VM Host)
The following table lists the measurement categories for servers with VMware ESX.
Sample time Server performance Processor performance Average processor busy Available Megabytes NIC Megabytes per second NIC Megabits Transmitted per second NIC Megabits Received per second Storage Megabytes per second (for the Physical Server) Storage read per second Storage write per second Host bus Megabytes per second Average Physical Processor Busy Average Virtual Processor busy Available Megabytes Network Megabytes per second Storage Megabytes per second (Consolidated value of the VM Guests on the host)

VM guest

IMPORTANT: The measurement categories are not applicable for the server with VMware ESX Host.
NOTE: Physical Processor Reserved and Physical Processor Limit are not applicable for the Guest configured on the VMware GSX Server. The following table lists the measurement categories for VM guests
Sample time VM performance Processor performance Average Physical Processor busy Average Virtual Processor busy Physical Processor Reserved Physical processor limit Available Megabytes Network Megabytes per second NIC Megabits transmitted per second NIC Megabits received per second Storage Megabytes per second Storage read Megabytes per second Storage write Megabytes per second

Smart Array controllers

The following table lists the measurement categories for Smart Array controllers.
Controller ID Name PCI slot Sample time Transfers per second Megabytes per second Milliseconds per transfer Queue length

Performance

Smart Array logical drives
The following table lists the measurement categories for Smart Array logical drives.
Controller ID Drive array Logical drive Windows physical disk Drive ID Sample time Reads per second Writes per second Read Megabytes per second Write Megabytes per second Milliseconds per read Milliseconds per write Queue length

To uninstall with the VPM uninstaller: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 1. 2. 3. Select StartProgramsHP ProLiant Essentials Vulnerability and Patch ManagementUninstall Vulnerability and Patch Management. When prompted, select whether to remove the VPM data stored on the HP SIM server, such as scan reports and VPM tasks. If data is removed, then it is cleared from the HP SIM systems list. When prompted, select whether to remove the patch database. When uninstall is complete, the HP SIM service is automatically restarted. Delete the VPM directory. The default location is C:\Program Files\HP\VPM. Select Add or Remove Programs. Select HP Vulnerability and Patch ManagementChange/Remove. When prompted, select whether to remove the Vulnerability and Patch Management data stored on the HP SIM server, such as scan reports and VPM tasks. Data that appears in the HP SIM systems list is cleared if data is removed. When prompted, select whether to remove the patch database. When uninstallation is complete, the HP SIM service is automatically restarted. Delete the VPM directory. The default installation location is C:\Program Files\HP\VPM.
To uninstall VPM from the Control Panel:

Remaining VPM files

A VPM uninstallation does not remove all VPM files from the server. The following files remain after uninstallation: Target systems: C:\Novadigm\ManagementAgent\nvdkit.exe C:\Novadigm\ManagementAgent\rma.tkd C:\Novadigm\ManagementAgent\ rma.log
HP SIM/VPM server: <HP SIM_folder>\hpwebadmin\webapps\ROOT\mxportal\VPM\column\vpmcolmain.jps <HP SIM_folder>\hpwebadmin\webapps\ROOT\mxportal\VPM\column\vpmbase.html <HP SIM_folder>\hpwebadmin\webapps\ROOT\mxportal\home\STATScanner 1
The VPM Results directory remains only if you select to retain VPM data during the uninstallation.

Reinstalling VPM

If an updated version of Vulnerability and Patch Management is installed after a previous version has been uninstalled, the entitlement list could be lost for all managed target systems. To prevent this, be sure that you uninstall and reinstall the updated VPM Patch Agent to all target systems.

Vulnerability scans

Vulnerability and Patch Management cannot access target systems
If Vulnerability and Patch Management cannot perform accurate scanning on a target system because of access problems, verify the following information depending on the target operating system.

Validating VPM Patch Agent installation
Check the VPM events to see if a successful Installed VPM Patch Agent event exists for the system to be patched. If no event is present or if a Failed VPM Patch Agent Install event exists, select DeployVulnerability and Patch ManagerVPM Patch Agent to deploy the agent. After the VPM Patch Agent installation and patch acquisition have been verified, reinitiate the patch installation by selecting DeployVulnerability and Patch ManagerValidate Installed Patches.
Patch installation status reports are not current or do not match information that appears in scan reports
Information that appears in patch reports is obtained during the most recent patch deployment task. If this information is not current, update the patch installation status by validating installed patches. For information, see the Validating installed patches section in this guide.
Vulnerability and Patch Management Pack troubleshooting 149
Other tools report that a Windows system is patched, but Vulnerability and Patch Management reports patches needed
Many other tools read the registry to determine if a patch is installed. In many cases, when a patch installation fails, the registry is updated while the files remain unchanged. Vulnerability and Patch Management verifies that both the files and registry keys have been updated.
Patch source for vendor patches is Microsoft or Red Hat
To determine patch applicability, Vulnerability and Patch Management might enhance patch detection criteria to be more precise than vendor information. These patches appear with an asterisk in the Patch Source column.
Multiple events listed in HP SIM for patch deployments
Patch deployments create multiple events in HP SIM. There is a start event, a completion event, and a patch current status event. The patch current status event evaluates the status of the patches after the reboot has been completed.
STAT Scanner update error listed in the HP SIM event log
If STAT Scanner cannot access certain necessary files during a patch acquisition scanner update, a 3010 error appears in the HP SIM event log. The file update will be completed the next time a reboot is performed.
Radia internal error listed in the HP SIM event log
A generic Radia internal error appears in the HP SIM event log if the patch repository is viewed before a patch acquisition had been performed.
Abuse of Service error occurs when attempting to acquire Red Hat patches
The Red Hat network might be disabled if the network determines that patches have been acquired too frequently. To resolve this issue, delete the registered system from the Red Hat network web interface at https://rhn.redhat.com. Recreate the Red Hat credentials on the Red Hat server, and then copy to the VPM server.

IDE Controller Inventory

Controller Configuration The controller identification, including controller model and PCI slot (if applicable) Number of disk arrays on the controller (if applicable) Number of ATA disks attached to the controller
Windows/Linux Physical DisksLists each Microsoft Windows and Linux physical disk defined on this IDE controller and whether the physical disk is defined on a single ATA disk or an array of ATA disks

Logical drive

The following information is provided for a logical drive.
HP Performance Management Pack measurement parameter matrix

Logical Drive Status

Reads/SecThe number of reads from this logical drive each second Writes/SecThe number of writes to this logical drive each second Read MBytes/SecThe number of megabytes read from the logical drive each second Write MBytes/SecThe number of megabytes written to the logical drive each second Millisec/ReadThe average time for each read to complete Millisec/WriteThe average time for each write to complete Queue LengthThe average number of concurrent requests between the server and this logical drive, including transfers currently being serviced and transfers waiting for service, regardless of where the request is waiting (disk or controller)

Logical Drive Inventory

Logical Drive Configuration The controller on which the logical drive is defined The array label (such as A, B, or C) as shown by the Array Configuration Utility (ACU) The logical drive number as assigned by the ACU and the physical disk mapping Logical drive size in megabytes The RAID level for this logical drive The logical drive striping factor Whether caching is enabled for this logical drive

Memory

The following information is provided for memory.

Memory Status

Available MBytesThe amount of memory that is not currently allocated to any process or is unused. A low Available MBytes value can indicate memory allocation bottlenecks. Page Reads/SecThe number of times the disk was read to retrieve pages of virtual memory necessary to resolve page faults each second. Multiple pages can be read during a single disk read operation. Pages Input/SecThe number of pages read from the disk to resolve memory references to pages that were not in memory at the time of the reference. This counter includes paging traffic on behalf of the system cache to access file data for applications. It is important to observe this counter if you are concerned about excessive memory usage, or thrashing, and the excessive paging that can result. Page Faults/SecThe average number of page faults each second. A page fault occurs when a process refers to a virtual memory page that is not in its working set in main memory. A page fault does not cause the page to be fetched from disk if that page is on the standby list and is already in main memory or if it is in use by another process with which the page is shared. There are two types of page faults: Hard Page FaultThe most expensive in terms of system resource usage, occurring when a missing page must be retrieved from the disk Soft Page FaultGenerally not considered a source of memory bottlenecks, occurring when the missing page is not in the current working set but is located elsewhere in memory and easily brought into the working set

Storage Status

Storage Transfers/SecThe number of PCI bus transfers to and from storage each second Storage MBytes/SecThe average number of megabytes transferred (read and written) on the storage each second

Storage Inventory

Windows/Linux Logical DisksLists all of the logical disks in the storage subsystem and identifies their associated drive letter, file system, disk drive size (in MB), and percentage of space used Windows/Linux Physical DisksLists all of the physical disks in the storage subsystem and identifies their associated SCSI ID, drive letter, and array controller
B HP Vulnerability and Patch Management infrastructure requirements and additional VPM functionality
This appendix provides additional VPM information including infrastructure requirements, using the VPM Acquisition Utility, updating VPM credentials, backing up HP Vulnerability and Patch Management Pack, and VPM event information.

Infrastructure

A server environment using the Vulnerability and Patch Management consists of the following components: Vulnerability and Patch Management HP SIM Target systems VPM Acquisition Utility (installed on a separate system, optional)
You must install the Vulnerability and Patch Management and HP SIM together on a single server (referred to as a shared configuration). For this release, both the Vulnerability and Patch Management and HP SIM must operate on a Windows server. In a shared server configuration, Vulnerability and Patch Management and HP SIM are installed on the same server. The following figure depicts a shared server configuration in which the VPM server has Internet access to obtain patch and vulnerability updates.
The following figure depicts a shared server configuration in which the VPM Acquisition Utility is used to obtain patch and vulnerability updates from the patch update sources.
VPM hardware requirements
The VPM server, the server on which the Vulnerability and Patch Management software is installed, must meet the following hardware requirements. Requirements listed for the VPM server are independent of requirements for HP SIM and any other applications that coexist on the VPM server. For specific hardware requirements for the HP SIM server, see the HP Systems Insight Manager Installation and Configuration Guide. Table B-1 Hardware requirements
Component Any HP x86 server Memory Processor Disk space Specification At least 512 MB RAM 1.5 GHz or faster File structure DVD-ROM drive At least 1 GB for Vulnerability and Patch Management (150 MB in the TEMP directory for installation) Additional space for scan reports and patches
New Technology File System (NTFS)
VPM software requirements
The VPM server, the server on which the Vulnerability and Patch Management software is installed, must meet the following software requirements. Requirements listed for the VPM server are independent of requirements for HP SIM and any other applications that coexist on the VPM server. For specific software requirements for the HP SIM server, see the HP Systems Insight Manager Installation and Configuration Guide. Table B-2 Software requirements

VPM Patch Start

Completed VPM Patch and Fix for System VPM Patch Ended with Success
A vulnerability patch installation has ended When a vulnerability patch installation has on the target system with the status of ended on the target system with the status successful. of successful. A vulnerability patch installation has ended When a vulnerability patch installation has on the target system with the status of ended on the target system with the status failure. of failure. Follow up might be required to determine the actual cause and remedy to the failure. It might be useful to examine any patch event details related to this patch. VPM Patch Agent is reporting the current status of a patch on the target device. The status is reported after the reboot. When VPM Patch Agent reports the current status of a patch on the target device because of a patch requiring a reboot.
VPM Patch Ended with Failure

VPM Patch Current Status

VPM Patch Not Applicable
The selected patch is not applicable to the When the selected patch is not applicable selected system and therefore is not to the selected system. applied.
Event Failed VPM Patch and Fix

Description

Occurs
A failure has occurred during a VPM patch When one or more patches fails to complete or fix operation. because of an internal error. Check the system event log for more information. A failure has occurred during a VPM patch When an individual system fix fails to or fix operation for a particular system. complete because of an internal error. Check the system event log for more information.
Failed VPM Patch and Fix for a System

Acquisition events

The following table lists the events created by the Vulnerability and Patch Management patch acquisition. Table B-7 VPM acquisition events
Event Started VPM Acquisition Description Acquisition of vulnerability updates and patches has started Occurs When acquisition of scan definitions, patches and fixes for selected operating systems and applications has started. This operation might take a few minutes depending on the number of items being downloaded. When patches for selected operating systems and applications have been downloaded successfully as part of an acquisition. When scan definition files have been updated successfully as part of an acquisition. When code that scans and fixes configuration issues has been updated successfully as part of an acquisition. When scan definition files do not need to be updated as part of an acquisition.

VPM has been Updated

The VPM product has been updated
VPM Scan Definitions Updated
Successfully updated vulnerability scan definitions Successfully updated the vulnerability scanner component of VPM No updates required for the vulnerability scan definitions, already up to date

VPM / STAT Updated

VPM Scan Definitions Up-to-date VPM / STAT Up-to-date

HP Server Automation complements HP Insight Control to manage HP BladeSystem servers
Introduction..... 3 HP BladeSystem..... 3 Virtual Connect..... 3 HP Insight Control..... 4 Deploy..... 4 HP Server Migration Pack Universal Edition.... 4 HP Rapid Deployment Pack.... 5 Monitor.... 5 HP Systems Insight Manager.... 5 HP BladeSystem Integrated Manager.... 5 HP Performance Management Pack... 5 System Management Homepage.... 6 Control.... 6 HP Integrated Lights-Out Remote Management... 6 Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager.... 6 Protect..... 6 Service Essentials Remote Support Pack... 6 Vulnerability and Patch Management Pack... 7 Optimize..... 7 HP Insight Power Manager... 7 HP Virtual Machine Mangement Pack... 7 Integrate..... 7 Enterprise Management Integration Solutions... 7 HP Server Automation.... 8 Baseline..... 8 Change and configuration management... 9 Compliance management..... 9 Upgrade and provision.... 9 Process automation.... 9 Using Insight Control and Server Automation together... 10 Managing with Insight Control and Server Automation: Examples... 11 Example 1: Solving a CPU performance problem... 12
Event and health monitoring.... 12 Performance Management Pack.... 13 Software compliance.... 14 Example 2: Solving a cooling problem... 15 BladeSystem visualization... 15 Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager... 16 Server Automation Compliance Check... 17 Example 3: Server consolidation.... 18 Planning and analysis..... 19 HP Systems Insight Manager.... 19 Performance Management Pack.... 20 Server Automation..... 20 Hardware setup..... 21 Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager... 21 MigrationConsolidation.... 21 Rapid Deployment Pack.... 21 Server AutomationSoftware policies... 22 Conclusion..... 23 For more information.... 24

Introduction

In the world of racked, stacked, and wired computing, you can spend up to 80% of your IT budget running the systems compared to the 20% you spend to acquire the systems. The HP BladeSystem environment improves this ratio by making it easy to manage many systems through a consolidated infrastructure. A populated BladeSystem enclosure is an adaptive infrastructure in an enclosure. The enclosure packages cables, power supplies and fans, networking, redundancy, and more. You can easily add servers, storage, and interconnect blades to build an infrastructure with a smaller footprint that consumes less power. HP Insight Control and HP Server Automation software extend the manageability of BladeSystem environments. Insight Control makes management of BladeSystem servers especially simple, automating steps in every hardware management processfrom provisioning to recovery. The combination of technology embedded in the BladeSystem infrastructure with Insight Control (based on HP Systems Insight Manager (HP SIM)) enables you to manage large numbers of BladeSystem servers. After the hardware management process begins, Server Automation software enables you to easily and consistently manage the software and application stack for large-scale enterprise environments. Together, Insight Control and Server Automation simplify the operations of BladeSystem servers and the application infrastructure. The first half of this white paper provides an overview of the features of BladeSystem, Insight Control, and Server Automation. The second half of the paper provides real-world examples to show how you can use these two products to reduce time and effort in data center operations.

HP BladeSystem

A populated BladeSystem enclosure is an adaptive infrastructure in an enclosure. With a BladeSystem enclosure, you can build vital business solutions that are more affordable, take less time to maintain, use less power, and are ready to grow as needed. The all-in-one design provides the essentials for you to build and maintain a server infrastructure from start to finish. Thousands of applications on Windows, Linux, HP-UX, and more are available to be hosted within the enclosure. BladeSystem infrastructure can support a combination of virtual machines, HP storage and server bladesProLiant, Integrity, and StorageWorksand can connect to a variety of the most popular networking environments and standards including Ethernet, Fibre Channel, and InfiniBand. Server blades range from servers and storage devices to workstations and virtual desktops. Many of the most popular HP products are now available in a blade design, including ProLiant and Integrity server blades. Each server blade is inserted into the HP BladeSystem enclosure, which provides redundancy, network connections, and a more efficient, shared power and cooling design. A variety of tools are built-in to help you set up and maintain the server blades at every step.

Virtual Connect

A simple solution to multiple challenges, HP Virtual Connect Ethernet and Fibre Channel modules are options for the HP BladeSystem c3000 and c7000 enclosures. They abstract and pool the server-edge connections so connections look like NICs and host bus adapters (HBA) to the local area network (LAN) and storage area network (SAN). This enables server administrators to independently manage server blades and their connectivity. You can maintain high-availability connections throughout the server racks, with secure administration of media access control (MAC), worldwide names (WWN), and Internet protocol (IP) addresses for each server. Together, Virtual Connect modules and HP Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager (VCEM) enable you to manage input and output connectivity for up to 100 blade enclosures from a central console, establishing pools of servers for flexible deployment, spare allocations, and substantial management simplification. All MAC and WWN addresses are stored in one database, which reduces the risk of
address conflicts. Group-based configuration can streamline enclosure administration across your organization.

HP Insight Control

HP Insight Control offers a set of capabilities that simplify the management of HP BladeSystem server blades, covering the entire server lifecycle from deployment to integration. HP Insight Control is a family of products that delivers improved control, flexibility and cost savings for your ProLiant and BladeSystem infrastructure. Based on HP SIM, HP Insight Control provides comprehensive system health, remote control, vulnerability scanning and patch management as well as flexible deployment, virtual machine management, and power management. Many of the functions that make up the Insight Control ecosystem can be purchased as part of the Insight Control Environment and Insight Control Environment for BladeSystem. These packages deliver lifecycle management functions through a single installer and simplified licensing mechanism.
Figure 1: HP Insight Control

Deploy

HP BladeSystem is designed for easy setup. Virtual Connect technology enables network and storage connections to be configured once for an enclosure, and then easily assigned to each server by the server administrator, without additional work by the network and storage administrators. After ProLiant hardware is set up, you can use two Insight Control products to install the operating system and applications: HP Server Migration Pack Universal Edition and HP Rapid Deployment Pack (RDP). HP Server Migration Pack Universal Edition Server Migration Pack - Universal Edition delivers the best physical and virtual migration options for HP ProLiant servers. It can quickly and easily migrate an existing server and all of its applications to a new physical or virtual server. Migrations can run concurrently for faster processing of multiple migrations. HP Server Migration Pack Universal Edition can be purchased as an add-on to the Insight Control Environment and Insight Control Environment for BladeSystem.

HP Rapid Deployment Pack Rapid Deployment Pack is a server deployment solution that facilitates the installation, configuration, and deployment of high volumes of HP servers using either scripting or imaging technology. It can deploy Windows or Linux images to ProLiant or Integrity servers. Server configuration time is reduced dramatically, making it possible to scale server deployments to high volumes in rapid fashion. Rapid Deployment Pack includes the ProLiant Integration Module and Integrity Integration Module. These modules consist of software optimizations for HP servers, including HP scripting toolkits, configuration jobs for leading industry standard operating systems, and HP server support packs containing software drivers, management agents, and important documentation. The HP Rapid Deployment Pack is provided as part of the Insight Control Environment and Insight Control Environment for BladeSystem.

Monitor

Insight Control gives you a complete picture of the BladeSystem infrastructure from performance to power and everything in between. HP SIM sits at the heart of Insight Control, facilitating inventory, health monitoring, and fault management. The HP BladeSystem Integrated Manager gives a photorealistic view of racks and enclosures, showing all components of the BladeSystem infrastructure contained within, with information from applications such as HP Performance Management Pack (PMP) for CPU, memory, and network utilization or HP Insight Power Manager (IPM) for power utilization. To get more detail on the server information shown in the central management console of HP SIM, use one click to launch the System Management Homepage (SMH) for the individual server. HP Systems Insight Manager, Performance Management Pack, and Insight Power Manager are all provided as part of the Insight Control Environment and Insight Control Environment for BladeSystem. 1 HP Systems Insight Manager HP SIM sits at the heart of Insight Control. It is a management platform architected as a central management server (CMS) managing the both physical server and storage devices as well as virtualized environments. Its automatic discovery, inventory, and health monitoring features provide the information that other Insight Control applications utilize to manage HP BladeSystem servers. The automatic event management feature of HP SIM enables email and pager notifications when an alert is received, as well as scripted responses. All of the other Insight Control components integrate with HP SIM to yield a well-rounded view of the IT infrastructure from a browser-based interface. HP Systems Insight Manager ships at no additional charge with ProLiant servers HP BladeSystem. It is also included in the Insight Control Environment and Insight Control Environment for BladeSystem. HP BladeSystem Integrated Manager HP BladeSystem Integrated Manager displays HP BladeSystem racks and enclosures in a photorealistic manner, overlaid with status icons and popup information windows to make it easy to manage your server blades. The rack view shows extensive power and thermal information. Icons and links make more information on health, events, or inventory of the individual blades available with a single mouse click. HP BladeSystem Integrated Manager is built into HP SIM. HP Performance Management Pack HP Performance Management Pack (PMP) is an integrated performance management solution that detects and analyzes hardware bottlenecks on HP ProLiant servers, select HP Integrity servers, and HP Modular Smart Array shared storage devices. PMP operates in conjunction with HP SIM, and is offered exclusively through the Insight Control Environment and Insight Control Environment for BladeSystem. No additional software installation on the monitored servers is required. Information is made available through the Insight Management Agents, which are used by many of the components of Insight Control, such as HP SIM and Virtual Machine Management Pack (VMM). PMP analyzes performance information to determine if there is a

HP Performance Management Pack is offered exclusively through Insight Control Environment and Insight Control Environment for BladeSystem.
building or existing performance bottleneck issue. This information can be interactively displayed, logged to a database for later analysis or reporting, and configured to send proactive notification using the HP SIM notification mechanism. System Management Homepage HP System Management Homepage is a web-based interface that consolidates and simplifies the management of individual HP ProLiant and HP Integrity servers. By aggregating data from HP Insight Management Agents and other management tools, System Management Homepage provides a secure and intuitive interface to review in-depth hardware configuration and status data, performance metrics, system thresholds, and software version control information. System Management Homepage can also be used to access the HP Integrated Lights-Out Management (iLO) processor on ProLiant and Integrity servers as well as the HP Onboard Administrator (OA) of the BladeSystem enclosure. HP Systems Insight Manager ships at no additional charge with ProLiant and ProLiant blade servers.

Control

HP Integrated Lights-Out 2 Remote Management (iLO 2) and VCEM enable you to make changes remotely to the HP BladeSystem infrastructure. HP Integrated Lights-Out Remote Management HP Integrated Lights-Out 2 (iLO 2) Advanced and Select packs enable control of remote servers from a central locationrestart servers, control power settings, connect virtual media, update software, and interact with the operating system remotelyreducing IT staff travel budgets while correcting server issues and improving system recovery times. Integrated Remote Console supports multi-user collaboration (up to four simultaneous session participants) and session recording and replay. Additionally, Virtual Folders and bootable Virtual DVD features facilitate single server remote deployment and update of software and firmware. Power capping settings allow you place a limit on average power consumption, helping you fit more servers in your existing infrastructure without overtaxing cooling resources. 2 Each copy of Insight Control Enviroment contqins an iLO Advanced license. Each copy of Insight Control Environment for BladeSystem includes an iLO Select license. Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager VCEM simplifies the management of BladeSystem environments that use Virtual Connect to control server connectivity to LAN and SAN infrastructures, helping organizations increase productivity, respond more quickly to business demands, and significantly reduce operating costs. Built on HP Virtual Connect technology, VCEM provides a central console to manage and control the connection of multiple BladeSystem enclosures to LANs and SANs, a single database to administer LAN and SAN addresses, and enclosure grouping capabilities that increase configuration consistency, simplify change, and enable the rapid deployment, recovery, and movement of server resources across the data center. Administrators can add, replace, and recover servers in minutes, without the need to involve LAN and SAN administrators after the initial installation.

Protect

A key IT function is to minimize risk to servers. HP Service Essentials Remote Support Pack (RSP) analyzes hardware faults and initiates support calls as necessary to avoid unplanned downtime. Service Essentials Remote Support Pack If a predictive failure indication is found, customers with support contracts or systems under warranty use the Service Essentials RSP to proactively analyze hardware faults and initiate a service call with HP. RSP also contains reports to show the current state of warranty or contract coverage for each
Existing implementations for power capping cannot guarantee circuit or power supply protection. Since the iLO 2 firmware caps average power consumption, it can guarantee that the capacity of cooling infrastructure is not exceeded.
system. The Service Essentials Remote Support Pack ships at no additional charge with ProLiant and Proliant server blades and is part of the Insight Control Environment and Insight Control Environment for BladeSystem. Vulnerability and Patch Management Pack Vulnerability and Patch Management Pack (VPM), offered exclusively through the Insight Control Enviroment suites, automates the detection of security vulnerabilities and provides actionable advice for problem resolution. VPM also facilitates automated patch deployment, selecting the appropriate operating system patches based on the results of security scans. VPM is useful in smaller IT environments where HP Server Automation has not been implemented.

Optimize

Insight Control optimizes the operation of the data center by enabling centralized management of virtual machines, power, and cooling. HP Insight Power Manager IPM is an integrated power monitoring and management application integrated with HP SIM that provides centralized control of server power consumption and thermal output at the data center level. IPM extends the capacity of data centers by allowing flexibility in the amount of power and cooling required for ProLiant servers. Incorporating Power Regulator for ProLiant 3 technology, IPM quantifies the power savings achieved from usage of flexible policy management. HP Virtual Machine Mangement Pack Virtual Machine Management Pack (VMM) optimizes server utilization by providing centralized performance monitoring and control of VMware and Microsoft virtual machines. VMM shows physical host to virtual machine association and makes it easy to identify virtual machines (VM) or host servers reaching high central processing unit (CPU), memory, or disk utilization levels. VMM has highly flexible move capabilities allowing live moves 4 and moves to different host resources. The backup, template, and alternate host capabilities enable restoration of VMs on any available host. VMM is the only out of the box solution available that can initiate VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) to relocate VMs based on hardware predictive failure alerts. Both Insight Power Manager and HP Virtual Machine Management for HP BladeSystem are included as part of the Insight Control Environment and Insight Control Environment for BladeSystem. 5

Integrate

Because it is built on HP SIM, Insight Control provides management of an entire HP storage and server infrastructure through a single console. Integration solutions connect the information provided by Insight Control components with other tools used for application monitoring and IT service level management (ITSM). Enterprise Management Integration Solutions Insight Control facilitates the exchange of inventory information and events between HP SIM and a number of HP enterprise management products, such as HP Network Node Manager, HP Operations Center, and HP ServiceDesk. Additionally, integrations are available to allow access from CA Unicenter, Microsoft System Center, and Tivoli Enterprise Console to information and events from the ProLiant Agents and SMH, which are installed on each HP managed server.
For more information on Power Regulator Technology: http://h18013.www1.hp.com/products/servers/management/ilo/power-regulator.html Requires VMWare VMotion HP Performance Management Pack is offered exclusively through Insight Control Environment and Insight Control Environment for BladeSystem.

HP Server Automation

Server Automation software provides the depth and breadth of capabilities you need to manage dayto-day IT operations across servers and applications. It is enterprise software that provides automation capabilities for operating system and application provisioning, patching, configuration management, audit and compliance, reporting, and a host of other IT operations. HP Server Automation has helped customers address their security and compliance management, data center consolidation, and virtualization initiatives while simultaneously improving their operational efficiencies and responsiveness to change. Server Automation supports a distributed architecture that enables global scalability. It can manage tens of thousands of servers in different subnets in data centers around the world. Server Automation manages servers running Windows, Linux, VMware, and various UNIX operating systems, including HP-UX 11i, across hardware from a multitude of vendors. Its main features when managing a BladeSystem environment are automatic baselining of the hardware and software configurations, policy-based provisioning, and application-level auditing and remediation.
Figure 2: HP Server Automation
End-to-end provisioning workflow Promote-toproduction workflow

Process Automation

Drag-n-Drop Workflow Builder, OOB integrations Flexible Execution Modes Audit Trails & Reports

IT change process workflow
IT incident/problem process workflow
Server Lifecycle Automation

IT Teams

Baseline
Servers Software Applications (full stack OS to app) Agent Deployment Cross-tier discovery of networks, storage and application dependencies

Change & Configure

Configuration management Patch Management (OS, softw are) Virtual machine config. Mgmt Global remote access Script execution

Compliance

Upgrade & Provision
Software distribution Bare Metal provis ioning Software deployment Virtual machine provis ioning Application configuration

IT Systems

Policy based audits Remediation Actionable search Actionable reports Cross-tier compliance views Subscription service for up-to-date compliance audits

Automation Platform

Scalable Global Deployment Architecture Secure Extensible
Server Automation enables your IT staff to bring the entire server environment under management quickly and gain unprecedented visibility into servers and operations. After you bring servers under management through an automated process, Server Automation provides a high degree of flexibility for managing and reporting server and application operations. The server explorer facilitates easy browsing of operating systems, patches, and applications across a heterogeneous group of servers. The global shell and Windows PowerShell interfaces let you run automation scripts easily and with enhanced security features across multiple servers at once. All administrator actions are stored and digitally signed in a central data repository for performing compliance and IT reporting. With a record of all changes and real-time server and business application views, Server Automation provides deep visibility and increased control for your application environment.
Change and configuration management
Without automation, IT activities such as application and patch installation can consume countless hours of your administrators time. Beginning with initial provisioning, Server Automation supports operating system and application provisioning, as individual tasks or as one sequence. Policies created to manage best practices for operating system and software configurations can be defined by subject matter experts. These policies can be shared and utilized by administrators in any location, ensuring compliance with corporate standards across all servers in all data centers. Server Automation offers powerful capabilities that aid in managing change and configurations. A secure communication channel enables your IT staff to access any server under management and view operating system, patch, running services, and audit trail information. Administrators can compare current application states with previous points in time to quickly identify changes and rollback as necessary.

Figure 3: Data center automation center
Business Service Automation Operations Orchestration

Live Network

Client Automation

Discovery

Discover servers, software network devices, & storage

Interdependencies

Service Automation VisualizerSoftware Applications Reporting
Configurations Patching Software distribution All applications & components

Server, network, storage

Network Automation

Audit

Server Automation
Provisioning & Scaling Storage
Servers & network devices Process-enabled storage provisioning

Automation

Remediation

Configurations

Monitoring events & alerts
Service Automation Reporter
Help desk/ change requests

Universal CMDB

Using Insight Control and Server Automation together
While Insight Control features are extensive, when you use Insight Control in conjunction with Server Automation, you can reduce the time and effort spent managing HP BladeSystem servers and associated workloads. Server Automation application and configuration features give you more control over the consistency of software deployment and configuration, resulting in fewer errors. The auditing and compliance features make it easy for you to improve compliance with corporate security guidelines. With Server Automation and Insight Control, your IT staff can better manage end-to-end business service with complete infrastructure control.
Table 1: Key features of Insight Control and Server Automation
Feature Deploy Network and storage connection configuration 6 Operating system deployment System configuration Application deployment Monitor Enclosure visualization Fault management Performance / resource utilization Power utilization System Inventory

Insight Control

Contract and warranty data Control Remote control (without operating system) Remote console (using operating system) Migrate virtual connect server profiles Protect Auditing and compliance Operating system security patching 9 Policy-based operating system and application patching Optimize Virtualization Power management Integrate Visibility Enterprise management integration solutions Application to server to network to storage connections
Managing with Insight Control and Server Automation: Examples
The following examples illustrate how Insight Control and HP Server Automation work together to simplify the management of extensive BladeSystem installations. The examples are not intended to be comprehensive, just illustrative. The first of three examples shows how Insight Control and Server Automation are used together to identify and solve a CPU performance problem. The second example illustrates how features specific to server blades make it easy for you to respond to a cooling issue. In the third example, a company has decided to reduce IT expenses by consolidating its existing server infrastructure onto new BladeSystem servers. Insight Control for BladeSystem and Server Automation save time and effort by simplifying many repetitive actions necessary in such a move.

Figure 4: HP SIM health monitoring
Performance Management Pack Seeing that the PF (performance) column for this server is showing a warning state, the system administrator clicks the icon to view PMP. PMP shows real-time performance graphs of a number of measures and generates reports that summarize performance over time. PMP integrates with HP SIM to give a complete picture of server operation. In this case, the system administrator notes that the CPU utilization problem is not just a spike, but an ongoing issue (Figure 5). To continue gathering information to troubleshoot this problem, the administrator looks at Server Automation to verify if the system configuration has not changed.
Figure 5: Performance Management PackOnline analysis
Software compliance Server Automation has a powerful automation engine that supports the creation of policies to define the software installation and configuration standards for a data center, a view showing which systems are out of compliance, and remediation to restore the correct configuration. The Compliance Dashboard, illustrated in Figure 6, shows at a glance if the servers are in compliance with configured policies. Icons represent the following categories of policies: Application configuration: These policies manage configuration files associated with applications. Patching: You can create policies from patch databases downloaded from an operating system vendor such as Microsoft. Audit: These policies let you specify the ideal state of a server in areas such as file system permissions or registry values. You can run audits on an ad-hoc basis if desired. If audits are scheduled, their results are shown in the dashboard. For audit policies, while you can see the results of hardware inventory comparisons, you can remediate only value-based results. Software: These policies model the desired state of an application installation, which might include patch and application configuration policies, in addition to software package specification. In addition to the policy compliance icons, the Compliance Dashboard also shows a change in the icon to the right of the server name to indicate if the Server Automation core server is unable to communicate with its agent, the managed server. Server Automation Compliance Dashboard shows that the system is not compliant with one of its application configuration policies. Viewing Details shows that the database configuration is out of compliance with the policy settings. After verifying the policies are correct and discussing them with the database administrator, the system administrator learns that, to help troubleshoot another

Figure 8: Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager
Server connection profiles specify the specific network and storage connections, including boot settings that a server blade will use. Unlike traditional network connections, Virtual Connect server connection profiles are assigned to an enclosure bay and not tied to individual server hardware, which means that servers can be replaced or upgraded and the network connections for the enclosure remain constant. When you insert a server blade into an enclosure bay, it powers up and follows the profile boot settings to connect to its communication networks and storage. Based on the boot settings, it could obtain its operating system through several methods including Pre-boot Execution Environment (PXE) boot or a pre-existing image on its primary local or SAN-based boot partition. In this example, inactive server profiles in VCEM have been configured, set up, and tested as part of the Oracle RAC cluster. During normal operations, inactive profiles are disassociated from the server hardware, freeing the server for other uses, but the profiles remain available for immediate use. The administrator identifies an available server blade in another enclosure and uses VCEM to assign one of the inactive server blade profiles for the Oracle RAC cluster and then boots the server blade. Server Automation Compliance Check The server blade profile is configured to boot the server from a pre-existing SAN-based boot partition that contains an image of the desired operating system and application, so the additional server blade can be added to the cluster quickly. Because this instance has been inactive, you must verify that the configuration is in compliance with current operating system, application, and security policies. The system administrator consults the Server Automation server compliance view (Figure 9). If there have been changes to the production application configuration policies since the last time this image was used, which is the case in this example, the system administrator can click Remediate to immediately bring the instance into compliance. This server can now be safely added into the production Oracle RAC cluster.

Figure 9: HP Server Automation: Per Server Compliance View
Now that the performance and availability of the database cluster is assured, the administrator can further investigate the underlying problem. After verifying various server hardware logs and verifying the temperature in the data center, the administrator goes into the data center to investigate the issue. The administrator finds that boxes are covering the cooling vents that supply cool air to the server blades. The administrator moves the boxes to an appropriate location along the outer wall. By the time the administrator gets back to the HP SIM console, the server blades have returned to a normal operating temperature.
Example 3: Server consolidation
In an effort to reduce IT expenses, a company has decided to move the majority of its existing rackbased servers to HP BladeSystem server blades. Some server blades are running commercial applications like Microsoft Exchange and Citrix, while others run applications that were developed inhouse. First, the system administrator uses HP SIM and PMP to understand the current hardware inventory, software inventory, and performance of the existing systems. Based on this information, the administrator develops a plan that specifies which server workloads can be consolidated onto a single server blade and which workloads should be migrated directly to a new server blade as is. HP BladeSystem c-Class enclosure hardware, which includes Virtual Connect Ethernet and Fibre Channel modules, is installed. The LAN and SAN administrators preprovision the network segments and uplink connections and required LUNs (boot and data LUNs) for each BladeSystem enclosure. Using VCEM, the server administrator creates server blade connection profiles that contain LAN and SAN connections and operating system boot locations for each new server. Then, the server administrator assigns them to enclosure bays. The administrator must configure a unique server connection profile for each bay, but the administrator can quickly create a profile by copying an existing profile and giving the profile a new name. As each server blade is installed in an enclosure bay, Virtual Connect uses the information in the connection profile to automatically connect the server to the defined communication and storage networks without additional help from the network and storage administrators. Then, the administrator uses Rapid Deployment Pack to deploy the operating

MigrationConsolidation

Rapid Deployment Pack Rapid Deployment Pack quickly and easily deploys operating systems to server blades and clients using either image or script-based methods. The system administrator creates jobs, such as Deploy ProLiant ML/DL/BL + Windows 2003 Enterprise, containing a series of tasks that configure the hardware in the preboot environment, install the operating system, and perform any customization steps. Sample jobs are included in Rapid Deployment Pack to simplify this creation. You can either launch jobs manually or configure the jobs to run automatically when a system is first added to the RDP database (Figure 13). Simply inserting a server blade into an enclosure and turning the blade on triggers the correct job to run. In this example, the system administrator has configured Rapid Deployment Pack to automatically deploy an operating system based on the location of the server blade within a rack, enclosure, and bay.
Figure 13: Rapid Deployment Pack
Server AutomationSoftware policies The system administrator is almost finished with platform setup. All that remains is to install the applications. Server Automation provisioning automates the time-consuming process of installing software on managed servers. A software policy encapsulates all steps necessary to install, configure, and run an application. The policy might include other policies, such as those for patch and application configuration, in addition to the information necessary to install an application package. Wizards in Server Automation make it easy for you to create software policies for each application in an IT environment. Before applying the software policies, Server Automation discovers the newly created server blades, and the HP Server Automation agent is deployed to each one. After the server blades appear as managed systems, attach one or more software policies, as shown in Figure 14. You can assign policies directly to individual servers or to groups of servers. Remediation is the step during which Server Automation compares what is specified in the software policy with what is installed on the associated system, and Server Automation brings the system into compliance with the policy by installing software or setting configuration values as necessary. The system is brought into compliance when the policy is first attached or scheduled for a later time. To remove software, detach the policy from the server blades and remediate again. If rules are configured to automatically assign server blades to device groups, such as by IP address, then the policies associated with those groups are automatically attached to the new server blades. Installing the applications is as easy as viewing the systems in the Compliance Dashboard and clicking Remediate.