OpenManage Enterprise Integration for VMware vCenter

What is OpenManage Enterprise integration for VMware vCenter?

Dell OpenManage Enterprise Integration for VMware vCenter for VMware vCenter (OMEVV) is designed to streamline the management processes of Dell PowerEdge servers running in a VMware environment by allowing the use of VMware vCenter Server to manage the server infrastructure - both physical and virtual. Leveraging OpenManage Enterprise as the backend to support the OMEVV plug-in. 

Features include:  

• Monitoring of PowerEdge hardware health directly in Host and Cluster views
• Providing plug-in dashboard within vCenter show summary details of manage hardware and management tasks 
• Report of detailed hardware and firmware inventory information for each managed server and chassis   
• Integration of hardware alerts into vCenter
• Managing firmware updates using optional vSphere Lifecycle Manager 
• Cluster aware updates for non vSphere Lifecycle Manager vSphere and vSphere vSAN clusters
• Set monitored baselines for server firmware levels  
• Bare metal deployment of ESXi to new PowerEdge servers with optional VMware host profile and destination vCenter
• Inclusion of iDRAC hyperlink for each managed server displayed in vCenter
• Support of VMware HA event management for supported hardware alerts 
• Warranty status for each managed server and chassis
• Access to wider OpenManage Enterprise and APEX AIOps Infrastructure Observability (formerly known as CloudIQ) features such as service call creation and Power Management
• Full Application Programming Interface: API support

Product summary highlighting functionality and architecture document

For OMEVV, activation rights are included with the OpenManage Enterprise Advanced+ license one per managed server. 

OpenManage Enterprise Integration for VMware vCenter 

For an overview of what the integration can do for you as a VMware administrator, see the below video:

Dell OpenManage Enterprise Integration for VMware vCenter (OMEVV) Quick Insight Overview video

Getting Started

OpenManage Enterprise Integration for VMware vCenter (OMEVV)

For the latest version of OMEVV, OpenManage Enterprise must first be downloaded and installed. The OMEVV plug-in is then available from the OpenManage Enterprise (OME) console within the Plugins section of OpenManage Enterprise. OpenManage Advanced+ licenses are needed on each server to be managed. An OMEVV, temporary 90-day evaluation license can be downloaded from here. It is also recommended that you review the latest OpenManage Enterprise installation documents.

Latest Updates

OpenManage Enterprise Integration for VMware vCenter v1.7 (Release Notes)

• Support for OpenManage Enterprise 4.4

OpenManage Enterprise Integration for VMware vCenter v1.6 (Release Notes)

• Support for OpenManage Enterprise 4.3
• Refresh policy for the repository profile
  • This feature provides the option to refresh the firmware baseline either manually or automatically.
    • Manual: When the refresh type is set to manual, the firmware baseline that is associated with the repository profile does not update automatically.
    • Automatic: When the refresh type is set to automatic, the firmware baseline updates automatically based on the user-defined frequency.
• On-demand refresh of repository profile
  • This feature refreshes the firmware baselines that are associated to this repository.
• Import VMware ESXi and vSAN based indexed catalog from UMP
  • This feature enables you to use the repository profiles that are created under the UMP plug[1]in. OMEVV allows only VMware ESXi and vSAN catalog type solutions.

OpenManage Enterprise Integration for VMware vCenter v1.5 (release notes)

• Updated to support OpenManage Enterprise 4.2.   

OpenManage Enterprise Integration for VMware vCenter v1.4 (release notes)

New Features:   

• Support for the vSphere 8.0 U3
• Configure OMEVV as a PHM provider on VMware vSphere 8.0 U3 and later versions. PHM enables retrieving predictive storage disk failure events from the VMware vCenter servers and proactively provides remediation
• Component list for PHA is increased to include storage components events. PHA enables VMware vCenter to automate the remediation of selected Dell hardware event actions, including placing affected node into maintenance mode
• Enables filtering of the logs using the VMware vCenter IP address to view the OpenManage Enterprise appliance common logs along with the logs linked to the registered VMware vCenter
• Enables launching iDRAC virtual console directly from a hyperlink for the managed hosts from the vSphere Client
• Configure blinking the LED on the server, to help in locating a physical server in a large data center environment
• Baseline profile optimization to support more than 100 nodes. OpenManage Enterprise supports 100 baselines, with each baseline associated to one or multiple groups

OpenManage Enterprise Integration for VMware vCenter v1.3 (release notes)

New Features:   

• Support for the vSphere 8.0 U2
• Support for new PowerEdge Servers, including new VSAN Ready Nodes
• Create baseline profiles, Check Firmware compliance, and Apply firmware updates now to standalone (non-clustered) hosts also.
  • Repository Profile can now be any repository (not just Dell.com)
  • Miscellaneous enhancements:
    • Search of cluster and data center group
    • Baseline profile creation is now more efficient
  • Note: OMEVV 1.2 supports firmware updates on clustered hosts only
• Discover, Add, Refresh, Inventory, or Delete bare-metal hosts; Apply System Profile to bare-metal hosts
  • Notes:
    • Check compliance was available with OMEVV-1.2. System profile is new to OMEVV 1.3
    • Adding new bare metal to OMEVV is a two-step process - Trigger bare discovery from OMEVV and then add those bare metals from OpenManage Enterprise
    • Bare metals group is created by default under OMEVV in Plugin groups (already available)
    • During discovery, multiple comma-separated IP addresses can be provided
    • In OMEVV 1.2, only bare metal hosts discovered by OpenManage Enterprise can be added to OMEVV
• System Profile Creation and Deployment (System Profile = Deployment Template of OpenManage Enterprise)
  • Create, View, or Deploy profiles
    • The reference server can be an ESXi host or Bare metal host
• Discover, Add, Refresh, Inventory, or Delete MX chassis (Note: No compliance check and system profile support)
  • If the MX chassis is configured as Multi Chassis Management (MCM), then if the compute sled is discovered, OMEVV discovers Lead chassis also so that the sled can be managed by Lead chassis.
  • The goal is for each NGM chassis to have Manage_with_Alerts and non-NGM to Manage_without_Alerts (OpenManage Enterprise supports alerts only for NGM chassis). But alarms have no associated actions.
    • Alerts are available in the Events of vSphere web client and in OpenManage Enterprise itself
  • Note: Chassis associated with OMEVV but not discovered by OpenManage Enterprise can be discovered
• vLCM support for standalone hosts
  • Note: The firmware update from vLCM is more comprehensive. User can update ESXI, drivers, add-on along with firmware at single task
• Miscellaneous Enhancements
  • Skip CN check option available (This allows customers to register vCenter using IP address or FQDN irrespective of common name at vCenter certificate) 

Dell OpenManage Management Pack for VMware Aria Operations OMMP 3.0 

OMMP 3.0 enables users to monitor or reports the following:

• Health of Dell servers, Dell chassis, and their components
• Power consumption details for Dell servers through the Server Extended Metrics
• Firmware drifts along with the criticality to update through firmware metrics
• Warranty details of the Dell servers and Dell chassis through Warranty Metrics
• Health status alerts of Dell servers, Dell chassis, and their components
• Dell server relationship with vCenter ESXi
• Server dashboards provide details of the managed Dell Servers' environmental health, warranty heat map, top alerts, firmware updates, relationship with components, high-power consumption, high temperature, and high fan speed
• Server views for server-chassis relationship, vSAN enabled, Proactive HA enabled, Firmware update and summary, power consumption, Fault Resilient Mode, SSD write endurance and Warranty details
• Details of managed Dell Chassis' environmental health, warranty heat map, top alerts, relationship with components, high fan speed
• Chassis views and reports for firmware and warranty

Support for the latest vROps SDK.
Support for vROps cloud

OpenManage Enterprise Integration for VMware vCenter v1.2 (release notes)

New Features:  

• Support for the newly released Dell's PowerEdge servers 
• VMware ESXi 8.0 U1 supported 
• Communication to OpenManage Enterprise appliance using the appliance IP address or FQDN  

OpenManage Enterprise Integration for VMware vCenter v1.1 (release notes)

New Features: 

• Support for the next wave of Dell's 16^th Generation PowerEdge servers
• VMware ESXi 8.0 supported 
• OMEVV Backup and Restore 
• Bare metal deployment of ESXi ISO on to servers plus optional VMware host profile support
• Support to use OpenManage Enterprise update manager plugin-created firmware catalogs with in OMEVV

OpenManage Enterprise Integration for VMware vCenter v1.0.1 / 1.0 (release notes)

New Features:

• Deployed as an OpenManage Enterprise (OME) plug-in
• Discovery of PowerEdge hosts managed by vCenter
• Updates OpenManage Enterprise inventory
• PowerEdge inventory, health monitoring, and alerting integrated into vCenter
• Ties into vCenter cluster policies: Pro-Active HA
• Standalone or cluster aware firmware update by VMware DRS and maintenance mode
• Support for vSphere Lifecycle Manager host firmware update.
• Log support in both OpenManage Enterprise and vCenter
• Full API support
• Support for management of up to 4,000 vCenter managed hosts within a single OpenManage Enterprise + OMEVV instance
• Full Role and scope-based controls of OpenManage Enterprise for administration panel control
• New OpenManage Enterprise reports include OMEVV data

Note:

OpenManage Enterprise Integration for VMware vCenter - Downloads

Table 1: OMEVV OpenManage Enterprise plug-in downloads (offline copy for air gapped dark site use)  

OpenManage Enterprise Integration for VMware vCenter - Manuals

Latest Manuals and Documentation

Whitepapers

OMIVV to OMEVV Migration
This technical white paper guides you through the steps to migrate from the legacy OpenManage Integration for VMware vCenter (version 5.4.1) to the newer OpenManage Enterprise Integration for VMware vCenter.
Migrating from OMIVV to OMEVV

Integration of OMEVV with vSphere Lifecycle Manager 
OMEVV serves as an HSM connected to vLCM to deliver Dell PowerEdge firmware updates along side VMware OS updates.  
Add PowerEdge update to vLCM

VMware Proactive Hardware Management (PHM) and Dell OpenManage Enterprise for VMware vCenter Integration
This technical white paper shows how OMEVV acts as a Hardware Support Manager (HSM) for propagating predicative failures using VMware Proactive Hardware Management Support (PHM).  
OMEVV and PHM
 

Other Resources

OMEVV overview video

OpenManage quick insight OMEVV cluster aware server firmware update
This process is designed to simplify and automate deployment of firmware. The update engine can update every server in an entire VM Ware cluster sequentially leveraging DRS to ensure VMs/worked migrated live before each server is updated and work across up to 15 clusters in parallel.

OpenManage quick insight OMEVV bare metal server deployment
OpenManage quick insight video showing bare metal deployment of VMware vSphere using a template on to brand-new Dell PowerEdge 

Deploy Server Firmware from VMware vCenter with OMEVV support video.

Install and Register the OpenManage Enterprise Integration for VMware vCenter Plug-in support video.

Overview

• OpenManage Enterprise Integration for VMware vCenter Overview

Deployment 

• Streamline VMware ESXi bare metal deployment OMEVV v VMware auto deploy

Firmware Updates 

• Save time and administrator effort with cluster aware firmware updates  

Useful Background Links

• Dell Developer Center (API interactive guide)
• GitHub for OpenManage Enterprise (Sample API scripts)

Other Links 

• Dell customized image of VMware ESXi availability and download instructions (ESXi images and drivers).
• Firmware catalog for Dell customized VMware ESXi images (ESXi firmware catalogs)
• Firmware catalog for Dell vSAN Ready Nodes (R640, R740, R740xd) (vSAN firmware catalogs)

OMIVV 
OMEVV has replaced OMIVV moving forward, and has transitioned from a separate "OMIVV appliance" to a OpenManage Enterprise Plugin. OMIVV is now in sustaining mode with no new features planed. The last released version was 5.4.1 supporting up to VMware ESXi and vCenter versions up to 7.0 U3. Customers wanting support for VMware ESXi 8 or Dell's 16th Generation PowerEdge servers should transition to OMEVV. OMIVV release 5.4.1 includes an integrated migration tool. OMIVV continues to be supported per existing support contracts.

• Migration white paper: https://dl.dell.com/content/manual179056-migrating-from-omivv-to-omevv.pdf   
• Documentation: https://www.dell.com/support/home/product-support/product/openmanage-enterprise-integration-vmware-vcenter/docs