White Papers

Import and Export of Secure Server Profiles

Executive summary

Server profile import and export is a cutting-edge feature of Lifecycle Controller that allows users and

field technicians to fully capture and restore BIOS and firmware in any system state—including bare

metal or system down. This capability provides an automatic one-touch solution for hardware or

firmware problems in use scenarios such as motherboard replacement.

Introduction

Import and Export Server Profile put systems back to its original coherent state in minutes. No more manual

firmware update and reconfiguration needed.

Dell introduces the export server profile and import server profile features in Lifecycle Controller

which allows IT administrators to backup and restore configurations and firmware for a PowerEdge

server. The export and import server profile features are controlled by two interfaces:

1. Unified Server Configurator (USC)—A graphical UI tool for local access of the Lifecycle

Controller features in a pre-OS environment. An export and import can be started in the USC

interface (refer to the User’s Guide for more information).

2. Remote Services—WS-Management (WSMAN) web services interfaces. The import and export

profile interfaces are defined in the Lifecycle Controller (LC) Management Profile 1.2. This

interface allows the scheduling of an import or export.

The export profile feature produces a file that contains the configuration and the currently installed

firmware packages for the Lifecycle Controller supported devices including iDRAC, BIOS, PERC RAID

controllers, and NICs. The import profile feature updates the firmware of the devices and sets the

configuration of devices to that which is saved in the server profile.

The new export feature runs in the background and does not interfere with the host processing.

The new import allows for the easy return of firmware and configuration to the previous server profile

backup level. This covers hardware replacement scenarios as well as rollback to a previous level of

configuration and firmware.

System and setup requirements

 Dell PowerEdge 11th Generation

 iDRAC Enterprise with Lifecycle Controller revision 1.5 or higher

 Dell vFlash with Enterprise License

 Dell PowerEdge 12th Generation or Custom system based on the 12th Generation

 iDRAC Enterprise with Lifecycle Controller 2 revision1.0 or higher

 Enterprise License

 SD Card required for USC based usage

Setup