Efficiently Monitor and Manage Dell PowerEdge Servers.pdf

8/11/2019 Efficiently Monitor and Manage Dell PowerEdge Servers.pdf

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www.dell.com/powersolutions Reprinted fromDell Power Solutions,November 2006. Copyright 2006 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. DELL POWER SOLUTIONS 1

SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT

Using the Dell OpenManage suite in conjunction withDell Remote Access Controllers DRACs and base-board management controllers (BMCs) can help simplifythe ollowing server management processes:

Monitoring server elements such as memory mod-ules, processors, cooling systems, and power supplies

Remotely managing servers Performing update deployments and other main-

tenance tasks to help keep servers up-to-date andhelp protect them rom damage related to high tem-

eratures an ot er pro ems

This article iscusses four scenarios in which thesetools can help administrators per orm common moni-toring and management tasks: monitoring server tem-peratures, remotely recovering and managing servers,remotely monitoring device performance, and performingserver ma ntenance.

Monitoring server temperaturesEnterprise data centers can generate enormous amounts oheat, and air conditioning failures can have a devastatinge ect on servers and other hardware. Dell OpenManageServer Administrator (OMSA) enables administrators toset temperature thresholds at which servers should per-form an emergency thermal shutdown. Figure 1 showsthe Thermal Shut own screen in the OMSA Shut owntab, which administrators can use to configure thesethresholds. OMSA also enables administrators to config-ure e-mail noti ications, broadcast messages, and SimpleNetwork Management Protocol (SNMP) alerts for thistype o event.

Remotely recovering and managing serversDRACs and BMCs can provide critical out-of-band remotemanagement capabilities, allowing administrators toremotely manage servers after an event occurrence.DRACs enable administrators to set up a full graphical

BY PRATHAP THATHIREDDY AND SRIRANJAN BOSE

u t p e ays to

Efficiently Monitor and ManageDell PowerEdge Servers

The Dell OpenManage suite of systems management applications, along with Dell

Remote Access Controllers and baseboard management controllers, can help admi

istrators efficiently monitor and manage Dell PowerEdge servers in enterprise data

centers both locally and remotely. This article outlines four practical IT manageme

tasks and how these tools can help administrators perform them.

Related Categories:

Dell OpenManage

Dell PowerEdge servers

Systems management

Visit www.dell.com/powersolutions

for the complete category index.


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SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT

DELL POWER SOLUTIONS Reprinted fromDell Power Solutions, November 2006. Copyright 2006 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. November 20062

console redirection of the server to a remote station, perform vir-tual media operations, and execute server power control actions.Figure 2, or example, shows the Server Control screen in theDRAC console, where administrators can reboot, power cycle,

ower down, or power up a system. BMCs, which are present bydefault in eighth- and ninth-generation Dell PowerEdge servers,enable administrators to set up a text console redirection o theserver uring system oot, access t e server BIOS, an executeserver control actions.

Remotely monitoring device performanceDe OpenManage IT Assistant is a one-to-many management app i-cation that can help administrators monitor and manage deviceswithin a network such as servers, clients, network switches, digi-tal KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) switches, printers, Dell/EMC

storage arrays, Intelligent Plat orm Management Inter ace IPMIdevices, and DRACs from a single management console. Admin-istrators can use IT Assistant to view hardware or alert logs rom

onitored devices (see Figure 3) and generate reports from thisdata, which they can then use to analyze hardware behavior trendsto help make decisions about uture hardware acquisitions basedon hardware quality and reliability. These reports can also helpadministrators analyze and troubleshoot critical hardware prob-ems, w ic can e p re uce system owntime.

IT Assistant 8.0 provides agentless per ormance monitoringcapabilities, which administrators can use to monitor the perfor-

ance or status o system parameters such as network tra ic;

I/O rates; and disk, memory, and processor usage on serversrunning the Microso t Win ows or L nux operat ng systems. ITAssistant can provide graphical representations of this data overa period of time.

Performing server maintenanceAdministrators can use Dell OpenManage IT Assistant to per-form large-scale scheduled deployments, including unattendeddeployments, o critical updates or elements such as serverfirmware and BIOS, storage devices, and network controllerdrivers. Figure 4, or example, shows the irst step o the ITAssistant Task Creation Wizard for a server software update.Using IT Assistant for this type of maintenance can help admin-istrators e iciently plan system downtime and carry out datacenter ma ntenance operat ons.

Simplifying data center monitoring and managementThe Dell OpenManage suite, DRACs, and BMCs can enable admin-istrators to track potentially dangerous conditions such as hightemperatures, per orm remote server recovery and managementoperations, analyze system performance, and carry out routine

aintenance. Using these tools can help administrators efficiently

Figure 1. Configuring thermal shutdown with Dell OpenManage Server Administrator

Figure 2. Executing server power control actions with the DRAC console

Figure 3. Viewing hardware logs with Dell OpenManage IT Assistant


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SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT

www.dell.com/powersolutions Reprinted fromDell Power Solutions,November 2006. Copyright 2006 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. DELL POWER SOLUTIONS 3

monitor and manage enterprise data centers, with the ultimategoal of helping to reduce system downtime and improve IT deci-sion making.

Prathap Thathireddy is a senior engineering analyst in the Software Prod-uct Test Group within the Dell Product Group. He has eight years of ITexperience as a systems administrator, technology consultant for storagesoftware, and test engineer. Prathap has a B.S. in Computer Maintenanceand Engineering from Osmania University in Hyderabad, India.

Sriranjan Bose is currently working with the Enterprise Embedded Soft-ware Group at the Dell Bangalore Development Center. His current interestsare systems management and virtualization. Sriranjan has a Bachelor ofEngineering degree in Electronics and Instrumentation from Birla Instituteof Technology and Science in Pilani, India.

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Efficiently Monitor and Manage Dell PowerEdge Servers.pdf