HP Virtualization Manager and HP Capacity Advisor: an introduction

The VSE Management Software’s management domain is a subset of HP SIM’s management
domain. HP 9000 and HP Integrity servers are the focus of the VSE Management Software, and
thus the management domain for the VSE Management Software is restricted to those hardware
platforms. As the diagram indicates, the CMS itself can be part of the management domain. The
VSE Management Software supports the HP-UX and Linux operating systems initially, and it will
support Windows operating systems in a future revision.
Within the VSE Management Software’s domain, the innermost box shown in the diagram
depicts a specific set of systems that have been grouped together in a customized system list for
management purposes. A system list can be created as a collection of specifically chosen systems
or system lists can be defined as a query such that all systems that meet a certain criteria are con-
tained in the list. In Figure 17-1, the four HP-UX servers in the system list could be part of a col-
lection where each system was specifically added to the list. Or the system list could have been
defined as a query for all systems running the HP-UX operating system. The difference between
the two methods of creating system lists is that HP SIM automatically updates the system lists
defined as queries when a new system is added to the management domain, but system lists de-
fined as a collection of systems must be manually updated by the administrator. In the case
where four HP-UX servers are specifically added to the collection, a new HP Integrity server
running HP-UX that is added to the management domain will not be automatically included in
the system list. However, if the system list is defined as a query based on the operating system,
adding a new HP Integrity server running HP-UX would result in HP SIM automatically ex-
panding the list to include the new server.
The diagram shown in Figure 17-2 illustrates the communication mechanisms between the
HP SIM CMS and the managed systems. Every managed system in the management domain re-
quires that a specific set of software be present and running. The required software varies based
on the VSE technologies in use. Generally speaking, a utilization Web-Based Enterprise Man-
agement (WBEM) provider tracks resource utilization for processors, memory, disks, and net-
work interfaces. In addition, most VSE technologies have a specific WBEM provider that the
VSE Management Software uses to collect status and configuration information from the man-
aged systems. Examples of these technology-specific WBEM providers include nPartition, vir-
tual partition, and virtual machine WBEM providers. In other cases, VSE technologies rely on a
proprietary agent on the managed system that provides the capabilities necessary for the tech-
nology. gWLM and Serviceguard both rely on such proprietary agents.
In addition to the VSE Management Software GUI, a set of VSE Management Software dae-
mons runs on the CMS. These daemons are responsible for keeping the data on the CMS up
to date. Every managed system is also required to have a secure shell SSH server available to
allow the remote execution of commands. The VSE Management Software relies on an SSH
client on the CMS to execute the VSE Commands on the managed systems when configura-
tion changes are performed.
chapter 17 VSE Management Suite
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