HP Systems Insight Manager 5.3 Installation and Configuration Guide for Windows HP Part Number: 418812-005

1 Product overview
HP SIM is the foundation for the HP unified server-storage management strategy. HP SIM is a hardware-level
management product that supports multiple operating systems on HP ProLiant, Integrity and HP 9000 servers,
HP StorageWorks MSA, EVA, XP arrays, and third-party arrays. Through a single management view of
Microsoft® Windows®, HP-UX 11iv1, HP-UX 11iv2, HP-UX 11iv3, and Red Hat, and SuSE Linux, HP SIM
provides the basic management features of:
• System discovery and identification
• Single-event view
• Inventory data collection
• Reporting
HP SIM can provide systems management with plug-ins for HP clients, storage, power, and printer products.
Using HP Integrity Essentials you can choose plug-in applications that deliver complete lifecycle management
for your hardware assets:
Product architecture
HP SIM leverages a distributed architecture that has three types of systems: CMS , managed systems , and
web-browser clients.
The CMS with the managed systems together are called the HP SIM management domain .
Central management server
Each management domain has a single CMS. The CMS is the system in the management domain that
executes the HP SIM software and initiates all central operations within the domain. In addition to the HP
SIM software, the CMS maintains a database for storage of persistent objects that can reside locally or on
a separate system. Typically, applications for the MSA tools also reside on the CMS. However, these
applications are not required to reside on the CMS. They can reside anywhere on the network.
Because the CMS is a system within the management environment, it manages itself as part of the domain.
You can add the CMS as a managed system within another management domain if you want to manage
the domain using a separate CMS.
Managed systems
Systems that comprise a management domain are called managed systems . A system can be any device
on the network that can communicate with HP SIM, including servers, desktops, laptops, printers, workstations,
hubs, storage systems , SANs, and routers. In most cases, these devices have an IP address associated with
them. A managed system can be managed by more than one CMS, if desired.
Managed systems to be managed must have one or more management agents installed. There is a wide
variety of agents, such as the ProLiant Insight Management Agents based on SNMP , or the WMI for Windows
systems, , or WBEM providers, and System Fault Management providers for HP-UX. These agents provide
management information and alerts (indications) to the CMS. The SSH agent (service) then enables the HP
SIM CMS to log in to the managed system to execute commands through scripts.
Web-browser clients
You can access HP SIM from any supported browser client. The network client can be part of the management
domain. However, you must run a compatible browser to access the GUI or an SSH client application to
securely access the CLI . You can restrict access to the web server on the CMS to specific IP address ranges
for specific users.
Product architecture 8