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

Figure
8
:
Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager
S
erver connection profiles specify the specific network and storage connections, including bo
ot
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 a
nd 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 coul
d 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 V
CEM
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 t
he 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.
T
he system administrator consults the Server Automation server compliance view (
Figure
9
).
If
there have been c
hanges 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 s
afely added into the
production Oracle RAC cluster.