HP Client Manager 6.1

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Introduction......................................................................................................................................... 2

New Features in HPCM 6.1 .............................................................................................................. 4

Understanding how HPCM works ...................................................................................................... 6

Extensive reporting capability............................................................................................................ 7

HPCM in operation.............................................................................................................................. 7

Client inventory................................................................................................................................ 7

Health monitoring ............................................................................................................................ 8

Diagnostics ..................................................................................................................................... 9

Updating system software ............................................................................................................... 10

BIOS settings ................................................................................................................................. 11

HPCM installation and evaluation........................................................................................................ 13

Integration with other Enterprise Management Solutions ......................................................................... 14

Altiris Connector for HP Systems Insight Manager .............................................................................. 14

Altiris Connector for HP OpenView .................................................................................................. 14

HP Client Management Solutions......................................................................................................... 15

Summary .......................................................................................................................................... 15

For more information.......................................................................................................................... 16

Summary of content (16 pages)

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HP Client Manager 6.1 Introduction......................................................................................................................................... 2 New Features in HPCM 6.1 .............................................................................................................. 4 Understanding how HPCM works ...................................................................................................... 6 Extensive reporting capability ..................................
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Introduction Today’s complex client/server computing environments can contain hundreds, if not thousands, of client computers such as workstations, business PCs, and notebooks. Managing the hardware and software on client computers can be challenging and often requires that each computer be visited individually for tasks such as upgrading the BIOS firmware or performing diagnostics.
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There are three classes of information that you can obtain from the client computers. • Client inventory: Includes detailed client information such as the chassis serial number, computer model number, memory size, operating system, CPU identification, and many more inventory items. With HPCM 6.1, you can even gather basic information for your non-HP client computers.
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Figure 2. Manually changing BIOS settings using the F10 key. These capabilities make it clear that the key benefit of HPCM is increased productivity. By quickly gathering information from all of your HP client computers, rapidly making changes to client computer system software, and changing the BIOS settings, all from a central location, you’ll be much more productive in managing your HP client computers.
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• Management of systems with HP ProtectTools embedded security chip (requires SP1) – Identify and inventory HP client computers that include the ProtectTools embedded security chip. Use the HP Client Manager console to remotely initialize the security chip on your computers saving time in setting-up a more secure client infrastructure.
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Understanding how HPCM works Understanding HPCM is aided by viewing the HPCM client/server block diagram, shown in Figure 3. Figure 3. HPCM block diagram The underlying infrastructure of HPCM is Notification Server 6.0 (NS 6.0). HPCM 6.1 plugs into NS 6.0, as do a number of other manageability solutions from Altiris, including Altiris Client Management Suite and Altiris Asset Management Suite. HPCM, in concert with NS 6.
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Extensive reporting capability HPCM provides extensive and customizable reporting capabilities. You can view the standard reports that are pre-configured with HPCM, or you can create your own customized Web reports. HPCM in operation This section shows HPCM in operation to more clearly demonstrate its capabilities. We’ll focus on the some of the primary capabilities of HPCM shown in Figure 1.
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Health monitoring The partial screen capture below shows the events that can be selected in order to monitor the health of your client computers. You can select the threshold values for free disk space and battery charge level. When a selected event occurs, such as a battery fault, HPCM responds based on your predefined notification policies. For example, you can specify that an e-mail be sent to you to alert you to the situation. Figure 5.
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Diagnostics Diagnostics are performed on the memory, CPU, storage devices and I/O devices. The partial screen capture in Figure 6 shows a typical diagnostics report. Errors detected by the diagnostic software are reported in the far right column (not shown in this screen shot). Figure 6.
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Updating system software HPCM allows you to configure system software such as device drivers and BIOS firmware on the HPCM Server for downloading and installation on client computers. HPCM installs software that is encapsulated into SoftPaqs and stored in the SoftPaq Filestore on the HPCM Server. The HP SoftPaq Filestore Configuration screen shown below is used to enter the path to the SoftPaq Filestore. Figure 7.
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BIOS settings HPCM allows you to modify the BIOS settings on client computers without having to individually visit and reboot each client computer. The HP BIOS Administration Wizard helps you change the BIOS settings that HPCM can modify, as shown in Figure 8. Figure 8. BIOS setting administration wizard Note: The BIOS settings that can be changed vary by computer model. When you run this wizard, you’ll be presented with the actual BIOS settings that you can change on the client computers.
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Figure 9.
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HPCM installation and evaluation The best way to learn about the capabilities of HPCM is to install it and use it. HP recommends that you do this first in a simple workgroup environment consisting of one Microsoft Windows server and just one client computer. This will simplify the installation process and enable you to focus on learning the capabilities of HPCM. Once you’re comfortable with the installation and use of HPCM in this environment, you can roll it out into your production environment.
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Integration with other Enterprise Management Solutions Altiris Connector for HP Systems Insight Manager The Altiris Connector for HP Systems Insight Manager enables IT professionals to consolidate deployment and management of HP clients and servers within a single HP Systems Insight Manager console.
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HP Client Management Solutions HP and Altiris have partnered to provide HP Client Management Solutions—a complete portfolio of solutions for managing the hardware and software aspects of HP client computers. HPCM provides client hardware management and is tightly integrated with the Altiris management infrastructure. Additional Altiris client software management solutions, based on this same infrastructure, are available to provide complete client IT lifecycle management.
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For more information As noted above, HP recommends that you perform a trial download and installation of HPCM to verify for yourself that it will significantly enhance the manageability of your HP client computer systems. For further information on HPCM and other HP Client Management Solutions, please visit www.hp.com/go/easydeploy. © 2005 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.