Support for EqualLogic Management Pack for SCOM 2007 R2

Question

Hi, I have a troubling issue.  I recently installed the latest version of the Dell EqualLogic Management pack for SCOM 2007 R2.  The installer completed successfully, however, after waiting some time, SCOM was still not detecting the PS6000s and PS6100 arrays we have.  SCOM was reporting an error saying that the EqualLogic Helper was not installed properly.  The documentation does not provide any information on what this is, how it gets installed, or how to troubleshoot this error.  The documentation only states one line indicating that the management pack installer will install the proper EqualLogic Helper .dll files automatically. So I called into Dell Tech support.  The technician was not familiar with the SCOM management pack software so escalated to the to the EqualLogic group, but, they responded saying they didn’t support the management pack and said we should contact the Network Operating Systems group.  Before doing that, the technician and I spent several hours going through the documentation to make sure we didn’t miss anything but still no luck.  We then escalated to the Network Operating Systems group. About a week later the technician calls me back saying he has received a final response from the NOC group.  According to them, the Dell EqualLogic Management Pack for SCOM isn’t actually made by Dell, but, is instead made by Microsoft and is offered on Dell’s website as a 3rd party software without support.  I don’t doubt what the technician is telling me, however, I have to doubt the information he has been given.  I find it had to believe that Microsoft would go out of its way to create a management pack for Dell and reverse engineer ALL EqualLogic arrays to design the management pack.  In addition, the Dell website offers management packs for other Dell hardware like servers.  Does Microsoft create those management packs too?  I doubt that.  Furthermore, the documentation for the EqualLogic management pack is clearly written by Dell, as it matches the same style and formatting of other Dell documentation which is noticeably different from the kind of documentation that Microsoft provides.  The technician agreed with this as well. The technician tells me the NOC group admittedly refuses to pursue my issue further because they say the software version of the management pack does not support the particular models of arrays I have.  Referencing this page [1] they say that when you expand the Compatibility section, it indicates v5.0 of the management pack only supports EqualLogic M4110.  I find this, too, hard to believe since previous versions of the management pack supported ALL EqualLogic models.  Also, this page [2] states that the M4110 is newly support, as opposed to only supported which suggests that the information in [1] is not correct.  Furthermore, the PDF installation guide included in the v5.0 download clearly states that ALL models of EqualLogic are supported and highlights the newly-added support for the M4110.  He said NOC refused to acknowledge this and claims that documentation is wrong. [1] http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/19/DriverDetails?driverId=J15YX [2] http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/systems-management/w/wiki/4120.dell-equallogic-storage-management-pack-suite.aspx So I need someone to tell me the truth.  Where do I get support for this management pack?  I cannot find any information about this management pack on Microsoft’s site.  If this is Dell’s answer, they should be able to at least tell me who/where to contact at Microsoft, but they cannot.  Any assistance is greatly appreciated. Thank you, Ryan

bradje1 · Answer

We watch this one with interest, as I too have never had much luck when trying to contact Dell about SCOM MP's they make.

You may like to post the question too on social.technet.microsoft.com/.../threads

as maybe someone from the SCOM Community has had experience with this.

JB

Peter Tsai · Answer

Hi bradje1, folks at Dell are actively working on resolving this issue from a support standpoint and we're also working to clarify Dell's support status of the EqualLogic Management Pack for SCOM.

We've reached out directly to bobst_its about the specific issue mentioned above and will post more general information here that everyone can use once we've worked through this case.

Thanks for your patience and stay tuned for updates.

Thomas_Jacob · Answer

For MP related queries/concerns, please use the  OpenManage Integrations with Microsoft SCCM and SCOM for faster response.

Peter Tsai · Answer

Update on this - Sorry to anyone who has encountered these issues.

I work at Dell and have been talking to the team that's working to alleviate to fix this problem. The bottom line is that the EqualLogic Management Pack should be supported and customers were being erroneously told that it was not. Dell supports the SCOM management packs that we put out.

Since the original post, Dell has made corrective training actions to make sure customers get the correct support. If anyone runs into the situation described in the original post again, you can ask to speak to the support engineer's manager or Team Lead (they should be up to date on this issue).

Also note that the emails for these individuals is usually in the support engineer's email signature.

Thanks.

Peter Tsai · Answer

Additional followup:

It's very important to run the EqualLogic Management Pack installer by right-clicking and selecting "Run as Administrator". This will grant the installer all the necessary permissions to install the EqualLogic Helper utility correctly.

If you don't "Run as Administrator", you will encounter the issue mentioned by the original poster, where he was not able to discover storage arrays.

Also, to clarify: the Dell EqualLogic Management created and supported by Dell, not Microsoft.

Systems Management General

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