Unsolved
This post is more than 5 years old
8 Posts
0
30442
Best practices for OME
We have been playing with Dell iDRACs (6 &7), OME 1.3, and Support Assist on a test server. Our initial goals are failed hardware alerting (to us and Dell), inventory reporting, and possibly console access to replace our existing KVM-over-IP solution.
Currently we setup a few iDRACs on ESXi boxes The iDRACs use their own VLAN. The discovery range has ICMP, SNMP, and WS-Man setup and seems to work OK. One Windows server we have tested within the discovery range doesn't show as much information. The docs do say that WinRM must be setup to get the same results (Service tag, model, hw info, etc) as ESXi when using WS-Man. The docs also seem to indicate the Open Manage client (OMSA) can provide the same information and much more if installed.
If possible we would like to know how others have setup and configured their OME systems, what they like, what they dislike, etc.
- iDRAC connectivity - Use a dedicated VLAN or put on an existing VLAN
- OMSA - Is OMSA really required? It looks like maybe you can live without it if you have iDRAC v7.
- OMSA connectivity - OMSA can only use the networks seen by the OS. Do you bind the client to a dedicated NIC or a NIC already used for production or backups?
- Discovery Ranges - with all of the various options how do you setup your DRs?
- Discovery Range Groups - DRGs seem very similar to DRs. Not sure of the intended use.
Thank you.
DELL-Rob C
2 Intern
2 Intern
•
2.8K Posts
0
June 24th, 2014 12:00
Hi there and thanks for giving OME a try.
It looks like for your intended goals you should get started this way:
1. For iDrac 7, create a discovery range using WSMan tot he iDrac IP.
2. For iDrac 6, install OMSA on the OS (Win/Lin) and discover the in-band IP Address (OS).
This will give you the best inventory and alerting.
Discovery Range Groups is just a convenience feature. it allows you to aggregate some of the settings at a group level and make it easier to edit them and have them apply to more than one range. Optional thing, but maybe useful to some folks.
Hope this helps,
Rob
emontag
8 Posts
0
June 25th, 2014 05:00
1. Will do. Why is it that WS-Man works on iDRAC 6 and ESXi but not Windows? There is not additional software installed on the ESXi machines and the credentials OME uses are for the iDRAC only. It seems like this should work on all systems no matter what OS is installed. Also, are iDRACs typically connected to in-band or out-of-band networks?
2. This may be a bit more difficult. Installing OMSA almost a hundred servers and running it on the "production" network will require testing and validation before proceeding. There will be concerns coming from the systems administrators as well as the security team. It might sell better if it can be bound to the NIC and VLAN used for backups.
Sorry for all of the questions. Our reps just say it is a simple install and easy to use. So far that seems true but we are really trying to get an idea of how OME should be installed and used in a real production environments.
DELL-Rob C
2 Intern
2 Intern
•
2.8K Posts
0
June 25th, 2014 12:00
1. Well the iDrac ships with a WSMan stack that supports instrumentation of the iDrac/Server. So there is not such a thing just out there for WinOS, etc.
2. You might look at using OME to push OMSA out to your servers. There is a built in task for this. Maybe try it on a few. Also probably a whitepaper (I think) on www.delltechcenter.com/ome
Good luck,
Thanks,
Rob