Getting started with HP SIM 5.3 in a smaller Windows environment (417431-005, January 2008)

Introduction
HP Systems Insight Manager (HP SIM) is HP’s unified server and storage management application that
assists you in managing all HP servers, storage, and system hardware within your IT environment. HP
SIM brings enterprise-level benefits to IT environments ranging from small networks to large corporate
networks. Regardless of the size or complexity of your organization, HP SIM can help you be more
efficient and proactive in identifying, diagnosing, and fixing potential issues for all of your HP
hardware. For example, you can receive notification of drive issues that enable you to replace the
drive under warranty before it fails.
HP SIM ships with all HP ProLiant 300, 500, and 700 series servers, HP XP, EVA, and MSA storage
arrays, and is included in the HP-UX media releases, or it can be downloaded from
http://www.hp.com/go/hpsim
and implemented quickly. The default management capabilities enable
you to auto-discover systems, monitor system health, deploy system software and firmware updates,
and setup paging or e-mail notifications for pro-active notification of potential problems. HP SIM also
includes a set of fully enabled licenses for value-added options such as patch management and
performance management, which enable you to evaluate these additional capabilities on ProLiant
systems. If you are responsible for managing printers, storage, and clients in addition to servers, HP
SIM provides additional value through consolidated access to specialized tools for managing these
systems.
HP SIM is easy to install and use. This paper guides you through the steps to install a basic HP SIM
configuration in a Microsoft® Windows® environment. For more information about using HP SIM in
other environments, visit the Information Library at:
http://h18013.www1.hp.com/products/servers/management/hpsim/infolibrary.html
This paper also describes some of the advanced capabilities of HP SIM that you can implement based
on the needs of your organization.
Five things you should know about HP SIM:
• It is the only unified server and storage manager platform in the industry – it can manage
servers, storage, desktops, printers, and networking equipment and interfaces with
management tools for those systems.
• It can be installed and configured on a Windows XP desktop in less than one hour.
• The graphical user interface (GUI) is intuitive and easy to learn (no extensive training
needed.)
• It provides fault and inventory management for a handful of systems up to thousands of
systems.
• It includes free licenses for HP ProLiant Essentials Vulnerability and Patch Management Pack
(VPM) and other HP ProLiant Essentials value-added plug-ins.
By default, HP SIM provides unified server and storage management including fault, inventory, and
configuration management of all your HP servers and storage. Even if you have little or no experience
using management tools, HP SIM can immediately help you become more proactive in detecting and
solving system problems. HP SIM provides tangible benefits in a wide range of IT environments. For
example: