HP Server Automation complements HP Insight Control to manage HP BladeSystem servers (487616-001, February 2008)

ManualsBrandsHP ManualsSoftwareHP Systems Insight Manager 4.x Linux Software

HP Server Automation complements HP Insight Control to

manage HP BladeSystem servers

Introduction

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HP BladeSystem

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Virtual Connect

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HP Insight Control

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Deploy

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HP Server Migration Pack

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Universal Edition

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HP Rapid Deployment Pack

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Monitor

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HP Systems Insight Manager

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HP BladeSystem Integrated Manager

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HP Per

formance Management Pack

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System Management Homepage

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Control

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HP Integrated Lights

Out Remote Management

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Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager

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Protect

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Service Essentials Remote Support Pack

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Vulnerability and Patch Management Pack

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Optimize

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HP Insight Power Manager

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HP Virtual Machine Mangement Pack

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Integ

rate

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Enterprise Management Integration Solutions

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HP Server Automation

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Baseline

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Change and configuration management

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Compliance management

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Upgrade and provision

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Process automation

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Using Insight Control and Server Automation together

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Managing with Insight Control and Server Automation: Examples

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Example 1: Solving a CPU performance problem

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Summary of content (24 pages)

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HP Server Automation complements HP Insight Control to manage HP BladeSystem servers Introduction .........................................................................................................................................3 HP BladeSystem ................................................................................................................................... 3 Virtual Connect .............................................................................................................
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Event and health monitoring.........................................................................................................12 Performance Management Pack ................................................................................................... 13 Software compliance...................................................................................................................14 Example 2: Solving a cooling problem.........................................................................
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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.
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address conflicts. Group-based configuration can streamline enclosure administration across your organization. HP Insight Control HP Insight Control is a set of capabilities that simplifies the management of BladeSystem server blades, covering the entire server lifecycle from deployment to integration. Figure 1: HP Insight Control Deploy HP BladeSystem is designed for easy setup.
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jobs for leading industry standard operating systems, and HP server support packs containing software drivers, management agents, and important documentation. 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 to do inventory, health monitoring, and fault management.
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Control HP Integrated Lights-Out Remote Management and VCEM enable you to make changes remotely to the HP BladeSystem infrastructure. HP Integrated Lights-Out Remote Management HP Integrated Lights Out technology (iLO) enables control of remote servers from a central location— restart servers, control power settings, connect virtual media, update software, and interact with the operating system remotely—reducing IT staff travel budgets while correcting server issues and improving system recovery times.
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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 moves2 and moves to different host resources.
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Figure 2: HP Server Automation End-to-end provisioning workflow Process Automation Promote-toproduction workflow Drag-n-Drop Workflow Builder, OOB integrations Flexible Execution Modes IT change process workflow Audit Trails & Reports IT incident/problem process workflow Server Lifecycle Automation IT Teams Change & Configure Baseline • Servers • Software Applications (full stack OS to app) • Agent Deployment • Cross-tier discovery of networks, storage and application dependencies • Configuration
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entire IT server infrastructure to validate compliance against audit policies and immediately remediate any areas that are out of compliance. You can write policies to cover software installation, application configuration, system configuration, virtualization, network, and storage. In addition, outof-the-box reports show whether systems comply with regulatory standards.
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Figure 3: Data center automation center Business Service Automation BSM ITSM Operations Orchestration Live Network IT Teams Discovery Client Automation • Discover servers, software network devices, & storage Network Automation • Server, network, storage Server Automation • Audit • Remediation Provisioning & Scaling Storage IT Systems Automation • Servers & network devices Service Automation Visualizer • Applications • Software • Reporting • Interdependencies • Configurations • Configurat
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Table 1: Key features of Insight Control and Server Automation Insight Control Feature Server Automation Network and storage connection configuration3  Operating system deployment 4   System configuration   Application deployment   Enclosure visualization   Fault management   Performance / resource utilization   Power utilization   Inventory 5   Contract and warranty data   Remote control (without operating system)   Remote console (using
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Example 1: Solving a CPU performance problem Keeping hundreds or thousands of server blades running on an ongoing basis would be difficult without automation tools. These automation tools can manage large numbers of servers from a single console. Insight Control and Server Automation reduce the effort required to do this. In general, Insight Control monitors, manages, and controls the server hardware, and Server Automation monitors the software configuration compliance, yielding a complete picture.
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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.
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Figure 5: Performance Management Pack—Online 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.
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problem, a higher level of database logging was manually turned on overnight and accidentally left on. The system administrator clicks Remediate to change the settings back to those established in the Software Policy for the application. Figure 6: HP Server Automation Compliance Dashboard As a final step, the system administrator looks at the PMP performance graph to verify that the CPU is returning to expected levels.
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Figure 7: HP BladeSystem Integrated Manager Enclosure View One server blade in the enclosure is part of a performance sensitive, mission-critical Oracle RAC database. Not finding an obvious cause for the excessive temperature, the administrator decides to use an available server blade in another enclosure to add a server to the database cluster to ensure adequate performance and redundancy while the administrator investigates the problem.
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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.
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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.
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system to both local and SAN-based boot drives. Applications are installed consistently through Server Automation software policies. Planning and analysis During the Planning and Analysis phase, the system administrator must understand the hardware, software, and performance characteristics of the current systems.
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Performance Management Pack When planning a migration, you must understand the performance characteristics of the current systems. In addition to the real-time graphs, the administrator uses PMP to generate reports that summarize performance over time (Figure 11). PMP integrates with HP SIM to give a complete picture of server operation.
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Figure 12: Sample software policy in Server Automation Hardware setup Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager The movement of large numbers of servers would normally be done in phases. With Virtual Connect technology, you can prewire all enclosures to designated LAN and SAN addresses at the same time with minimal physical cabling, resulting in lower costs and more efficient use of the network and storage administrators’ time.
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Figure 13: Rapid Deployment Pack Server Automation—Software 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.
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Figure 14: Server Automation software remediation With the new server blades installed and provisioned by a joint use of Insight Control and Server Automation, the server blades are ready to be moved into production, where they are monitored by HP SIM and Server Automation. Conclusion HP leads the industry in providing solutions for managing IT infrastructure at all levels, from applications and services to infrastructure components such as clients, networks, servers, and storage.
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For more information For more information, including white papers and downloads, see the following websites: HP BladeSystem: http://www.hp.com/go/bladesystem HP Insight Control: http://www.hp.com/go/ice HP Server Automation: http:\\www.hp.com\go\hpsa © 2008 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services.