Understanding the Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager

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Understanding the Virtual Connect Enterprise

Manager

Technology brief

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

VCEM architecture and integration in the BladeSystem infrastructure .......................................................... 2

Managing with VCEM .......................................................................................................................... 3

Management interfaces .................................................................................................................... 4

VCEM GUI .................................................................................................................................. 4

VCEM CLI .................................................................................................................................... 5

Other management tools ............................................................................................................... 5

VCEM role-based domain management .............................................................................................. 6

VCEM management integration ......................................................................................................... 6

VCEM and Matrix OE ................................................................................................................... 8

Configuration and deployment .............................................................................................................. 8

Discovery ........................................................................................................................................ 8

Setup Wizard .................................................................................................................................. 8

VC domain groups ........................................................................................................................... 8

Server profile failover ......................................................................................................................... 10

VC domain maintenance .................................................................................................................... 10

VCEM solution use cases .................................................................................................................... 10

Moving server profiles .................................................................................................................... 11

Propagating changes to existing VC domains within a VC domain group ............................................. 13

Provisioning bare metal enclosures ................................................................................................... 15

VCEM Licensing ................................................................................................................................ 16

Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 16

For more information .......................................................................................................................... 18

Summary of content (18 pages)

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Understanding the Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager Technology brief Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 2 VCEM architecture and integration in the BladeSystem infrastructure .......................................................... 2 Managing with VCEM..........................................................................................................................
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Introduction HP management for Converged Infrastructure gives you a centralized management solution for HP BladeSystem enclosures, for an entire data center, or for multiple datacenters1. Virtual Connect (VC) and Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager (VCEM) are essential parts of HP Converged Infrastructure. VCEM centralizes connection management and workload mobility for HP BladeSystem servers that use VC to access LANs, SANs, and converged network infrastructure.
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Figure 1 shows the BladeSystem management structure. iLO resides within each BladeSystem server, and the Onboard Administrator in each enclosure is the central control point for an enclosure. Onboard Administrator controls configuration, power, administrative control, iLO blade management processors, network switches (depending on the models of switches used), and storage components (such as SAN or SATA).
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VCEM performs the following management functions for BladeSystem servers that use VC:  Centralizes connectivity and workload management  Improves infrastructure consistency through a common configuration to deploy and manage VC domain groups  Simplifies server migration from test to production Organizations with multiple VC domains can use VCEM to complete tasks like these across the data center more quickly, consistently and reliably:  Add new VC domains, blade servers, and BladeSystem enclosures  Mod
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Through the dedicated home page, you can access the majority of VCEM operations, including the following core tasks:  Discover and import existing VC domains without system downtime  Aggregate individual VC addresses for LAN and SAN connectivity into a centrally administered VCEM address database  Create VC domain groups  Add and remove VC domains within VC domain groups  Define server profiles and link to available LAN and SAN network resources  Assign server profiles to enclosure bays  Move server
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VCEM role-based domain management VCEM includes several levels of role-based administration to control management access and operations. Rolebased management allows you to control user and administrator access by assigning administrator accounts roles ranging from complete authority over the environment to limited access to certain areas. Figure 3 shows the VCEM command hierarchy and Table 1 defines the roles. Figure 3: This is the command hierarchy in role-based VCEM management.
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which in turn works with the Onboard Administrator and iLO for hardware management. VCEM can manage infrastructures from single and multi-enclosure VC domains ranging from medium-sized installations to large data center environments with hundreds of VC domains and thousands of servers. We have integrated HP Insight Control with HP SIM to provide a secure platform to centrally manage servers, storage, and other infrastructure devices across many operating system environments.
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– Change, move, and automatically failover servers and their workloads  HP Insight Control – Server lifecycle – HP SIM – Power management – VM management – Remote support  HP Matrix OE – Infrastructure design and orchestration – Capacity planning – Systems recovery VCEM and Matrix OE HP Matrix OE is an integrated infrastructure management stack containing the tools needed to build and manage an infrastructure as a service.
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servers within their enclosures without changes to the external LAN/SAN environments. With VCEM, you can move and copy profiles within a single VC domain, among any VC domains, or among VC domain groups. VC domain grouping allows you to use a master configuration to deploy and maintain multiple VC domains that access the same networks. This increases infrastructure consistency and simplifies deploying new enclosures and domains, whether they are single-enclosure or multi-enclosure VC domains.
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Server profile failover VCEM server profile failover is a fast-recovery tool that can help you minimize unplanned downtime. You can use VC server profile failover to perform rapid and cost-effective recovery of physical servers within the same VC domain group with minimal administrator intervention. When a failover event occurs, VCEM provides an automated method to restore availability levels. In contrast, manually moving a VC server profile requires four steps: 1. Power down the original or source server.
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Moving server profiles You can move server profiles within the same VC domain group or to a different VC domain group. Using VCEM, you can quickly deploy, replace, and recover servers and their associated workloads by simply assigning or reassigning the VC server profile to a different enclosure bay. When you move a server profile, the associated MAC, WWN, boot-from-SAN parameters, and related workloads always move with the server profile.
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When moving server profiles, VCEM ensures that the server profiles are compatible with the target VC domain group, and then it moves the server profile without any change to its MAC/WWN addresses or LAN/SAN connections. The VCEM Move profile pre-validation takes place before you can move or export profiles. Profile pre-validation warns you of incompatibility between a server profile and the target VC domain group. It also warns about any necessary actions after the server profile has been exported.
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Figure 8 illustrates a server profile movement operation from Domain Group A to Domain Group B using VCEM. VCEM manages domain configurations and server profile information during the move. Figure 8: VCEM allows you to move server profiles within the domain group or to other groups. Propagating changes to existing VC domains within a VC domain group Using a master configuration, you can deploy and maintain multiple VC domains that access the same networks within a VC domain group.
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The change in this use case is to define a new Ethernet network. To do it, you would first go to the maintenance page in the VCEM GUI (Figure 9) and enable VCEM domain maintenance for a single VC domain. Figure 9: Activate the VCEM domain maintenance mode from this page.
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The Make Changes via VC Manager button in Figure 10 invokes the VCM login screen and then the home page. From there you would navigate to the “Define Ethernet Network” screen (Figure 10) and use this screen to add a network. Figure 10: This is the screen in the VCM GUI for defining a new Ethernet network. When you complete the network definition and exit the domain maintenance mode, VCEM will replicate your changes to all VC domains in the group.
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The following example explains how you can use VCEM to add new bare metal enclosures and take advantage of faster provisioning. To find the new enclosure, you can run the HP SIM discovery function. From the VCEM home page (Figure 11), you would click the VC Domains tab, select the newly discovered VC domain (the new enclosure), and then click the Add to VC Domain Group button. Figure 11: The VC domains page allows you to add newly discovered bare metal enclosures.
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and eliminates the risk of address conflicts. Device data provided by VCEM, as part of HP integrated management, provides information that Insight Control uses for data center-wide server health and monitoring. This flexible infrastructure also provides the foundation for logical server deployment and orchestration delivered with HP Matrix Operating Environment software.
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For more information Visit the URLs listed below if you need additional information. Resource description Web address HP Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager 7.0 User Guide http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/management /unified/infolibraryis.html HP Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager Command Line Interface Version 7.0 User Guide http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/management /unified/infolibraryis.html HP Insight Management VCEM Web Client SDK 7.