Moving to Enterprise

Question

I'm really struggling with OpenManage Enterprise and the steps transitioning to it.

In Essentials, I configure SNMP on the Server (R710 for example) then I would load OpenManage on that same server, configure alerts how I preferred, go to Essentials server, do a discovery and inventory, and all was good.

As far as the Enterprise version, I have the VM loaded and up and running, but I for the life of me cannot seem to figure out how to add a server to it. The discovery options are completely foreign. I've been going through the videos that Dell offers but they don't seem to explain something as simple as setting up a server like and R710 or R820 (which is all I use Essentials for.) I really don't see anything that shows a transition from one software to the other, which is what I need.

I must be missing something.
Any help would be great

Thanks

Eric

Dell-DylanJ · Accepted Answer

OMEnt does leverage SNMP, but I haven't tried using it with the older equipment directly, myself.

https://dell.to/3j3aoWZ

Page 115 of the link above has a section that goes over using SNMP for discovery though, it may be of use.

AlphaTwin · Answer

So it looks like Idrac has to be enabled.... somehow??? One of the Dell videos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1yPN-uxNU0&t=40s) says if a discovery fails I need to login to idrac and see if my credential are valid (what credentials?) It looks like he's just going to the IP address of the server where he appears to get a login, I imagine to the idrac? I sure don't get that. All of these videos are like that, they skip over all the basic steps, and seem to be geared for people who already have an understanding of Enterprise.

AlphaTwin · Answer

So as I feared, Idrac is a whole other chip on the board, which will require other IP address. That's going to be a problem, since I don't have enough IPs to hand another one to every server. And not all of my servers have an idrac chip, some of them only have the BMC. I fear there is no option for me to use the Enterprise software, and I'm going to be relying on OpenManager Server Administrator alone.

Dell-DylanJ · Answer

I haven't been keeping up with Essentials, but I hadn't heard that. I'll see if I might be able to run down a working link for you, but I can't promise that, unfortunately.

Dell-DylanJ · Answer

Hello,

Yes, OpenManage Enterprise does communicate with the systems' iDRACs. The default credentials for those are U:root P:calvin, save for the newer generation server models. I've looked into the BMC part in the past and found Enterprise didn't support communication with BMC equipped systems. I can try to find a current documentation source on that, if you'd like, but I'm fairly confident that is still true.

Essentials should still work for your older equipment, though. I have a non-Dell friend who, last I talked to him about it, still manages his older equipment with Essentials and seems to not run into many issues.

If you have an in-warranty system, you could consider calling in. The systems management team should be able to help run you through the process, as well as set up a WebEx. The forum is a great way to help with targeted issues, but new setups can be a bit of a challenge.

Have you looked through any of the documentation, by chance? I know that can help some folks more than videos (others not so much). If you haven't I can try providing a few links.

AlphaTwin · Answer

Thanks for the response.

Yes I've been looking though the documentation a little more deeply, and it doesn't look terribly hard to setup.

My issues:

I have legacy hardware, that will only talk to Essentials, I need to move my Essentials to a different server, (very old server, with obsolete OS and badly need decommissioned) so I need to download Essentials from Dell, however, Dell has scrubbed Essentials from their website. Any link you click on to try and download a newer version of Essentials (newer is what I want because it's required for the newer Server OS I want to load) it redirects you to Enterprise. It's maddening, literally.

AlphaTwin · Answer

Does the Enterprise version have the ability to communicate through SNMP like Essentials did? If that were the case I could just cut over to it, but I don't see any sort of discovery like that in the Enterprise appliance discovery options.

AlphaTwin · Answer

Exploring the document that you linked, specifically page 155... where is credentials, I don't see any of these options on the Enterprise server.

Dell-DylanJ · Answer

Which OMEnt version do you have in place? This guide is from 3.5. I want to make sure we're looking at similar versions first.

AlphaTwin · Answer

Version 3.7.0 (Build 82)

DELL-Charles R · Answer

Hello AlphaTwin,

Here we have the OME v.3.7 user guide :

https://dell.to/3AVKElP

When you created a device discovery job; did you enable trap reception?

step by step Page 42

step 8: It's a good idea to check the "Enable trap reception..." box when performing iDRAC discovery. This enables Alerts in iDRAC & sets the OME as the trap destination.

Note: without this checkbox, you will still see health status changes, but will not receive alert events.

If that doesn’t work check Customized SNMP section Dylan provided:

Page 50 shows - Create customized device discovery job protocol for SNMP devices

OpenManage Enterprise Discovery tutorial video:

https://dell.to/3AJsUKi

Dell OpenManage Enterprise

Moving to Enterprise

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