OpenManage Enterprise: Support for Dell OpenManage Ansible Modules

Dell OpenManage Ansible Modules allows Data Center and IT administrators to use Red Hat Ansible to provision, configure, deploy, and update PowerEdge servers through the management automation capabilities built into the Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller (iDRAC), OpenManage Enterprise, and OpenManage Enterprise-Modular. Ansible by Red Hat is a DevOps tool that can configure systems, deploy software, and orchestrate more advanced IT tasks such as continuous deployments or zero downtime rolling updates.

OpenManage Ansible Modules simplifies and automates provisioning, deployment, and updates of PowerEdge servers and modular infrastructure. It allows system administrators and software developers to introduce the physical infrastructure provisioning into their software provisioning stack, integrate with existing DevOps pipelines and manage their infrastructure using version-controlled playbooks, server configuration profiles, and templates in line with the Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) principles.

Enhancements to OpenManage Ansible Modules

• OpenManage Ansible modules are available as an Ansible Collection on Ansible Galaxy.
• OpenManage Ansible collection is certified and included as part of the Ansible community major release v3.0.0 and onwards.

• Smart Fabric management:
  • Network VLAN configuration
  • Fabric management - create, modify, and delete fabrics
  • Uplinks management - create, modify, and delete uplinks
  • Port breakout - configure port breakouts for fabric configuration

• Enhanced firmware update:
  • Check firmware compliance with check mode support
  • Improved job tracking until completion for all components' update
  • Removed dependency on python omsdk library for iDRAC9
• Enhanced user configuration:
  • Support for configuring privacy encryption protocols (AES, DES, etc.)
• Enhanced server power management:
  • Removed dependency on omsdk for both iDRAC7/8 and iDRAC9
  • Standard Redfish API support for power management operations
  • Bug-Fixes and Deprecations - please see the CHANGELOG for all the details

• Import server configuration profile - import SCP from a remote network share (CIFS, NFS, HTTP/S) or a local path
• iDRAC certificate management - generate certificate signing request (CSR), import/export certificates, and reset SSL certificate to factory default
• iDRAC lifecycle controller job - get job status, delete a job, delete job queue, and force delete job queue
• iDRAC lifecycle controller status - get lifecycle controller status and the server status
• iDRAC attributes configuration - iDRAC, LC, and system attributes configuration

Features of OpenManage Ansible Modules

• Automate the lifecycle management of PowerEdge servers, MX7000 chassis, and compute blades
• Device Inventory and Health Status - View detailed device inventory, including health status, of all the devices OpenManage Enterprise and OpenManage Enterprise-Modular manage and monitor
• Template-based server deployment:
  • Capture reference deployment templates from a golden server and deploy it on target servers to ensure consistent and repeatable configuration
  • Edit configuration templates as per the desired server configuration end state
  • Deploy OS images as part of the template deployment using a single task
• Firmware baseline compliance using a catalog and firmware repository
• User Administration - automate the CRUD operations for OpenManage Enterprise and OpenManage Enterprise-Modular users
• Power Management - automate the power management operations such as power up, power down, graceful restart, so on of servers and compute blades
• Job Management - View job details and monitor their progress status within your playbook for complex workflows
• Appliance Configuration - webserver, network proxy, time-zone, NTP, DNS, and IPv4/IPv6 addressing including multihoming configuration
• Appliance web-server certificate management - generate certificate signing requests (CSR) and upload certificates

• Supports agent-free and automated bare-metal configuration, provisioning, deployment, and update of PowerEdge servers with iDRAC7, iDRAC8, or iDRAC9
• Leverages Redfish REST APIs provided by iDRAC for agent-Free (out-of-band) bare-metal provisioning, deployment, and update of PowerEdge servers
• Export Server Configuration Profile (SCP) containing the complete representation of server configuration in XML or JSON format to a remote network share (CIFS or NFS) or local file path
• Import Server Configuration Profile (SCP) from a remote network share (CIFS or NFS) or local file path for a consistent and repeatable configuration
• Use Ansible playbooks for zero-touch automated end-to-end configuration, provisioning, deployment, and update of PowerEdge servers:
  • Power cycle: Power up, down, and graceful restart
  • iDRAC configuration
    • User and Password administration - create, modify, or delete local user settings
    • Network Configuration - iDRAC network settings including DHCP and Static address configuration
    • Services - Web server and SNMP settings
    • SNMP Alerting and Email settings
    • Configure Time zone and NTP settings
    • System Lockdown
    • iDRAC reset
  • BIOS configuration - configure all BIOS attributes using a single task including Boot Order, One-Time Boot settings, etc.
  • Storage configuration - create, modify, or delete multiple RAID volumes on direct-attached storage associated with a storage controller
  • OS deployment - deploy operating system ISO from a remote network share (CIFS, NFS)
• Use Ansible modules for keeping the status of the Lifecycle Controller jobs and construct a step-by-step workflow for your automation playbook
• Get detailed component level hardware and firmware inventory
• Perform Out-of-Band firmware updates from remote network file share (HTTP/HTTPS, CIFS, NFS) using Dell Update Packages and catalog files

Licensing for OpenManage Ansible Modules

OpenManage Ansible Modules are open source and licensed under the GNU GPL v3.0 License. https://github.com/dell/dellemc-openmanage-ansible-modules

Download of OpenManage Ansible Modules

OpenManage Ansible Modules are open-source standalone software. Dell is continuously improving the modules with minor releases containing new features, enhancements, and bug-fixes. For detailed information, read the CHANGELOG on GitHub repository. Take advantage of the new features and contribute to the ongoing development by either downloading the latest collection from Ansible Galaxy or by cloning the repository from the OpenManage Ansible Modules GitHub repository. Major releases of the modules may also be downloaded from Dell Support.

Resources for OpenManage Ansible Modules

Community

Engage in the Systems Management community to find:

• Boards to post questions and answers
• Blogs to read and comment on articles
• Idea exchanges to improve products and vote for ideas that other community members have posted
• And more….

Documentation

See the OpenManage Ansible Modules Documentation. Sample playbooks can be found in the playbook folder.

Support

• Dell support OpenManage Ansible Modules
• In addition, issues can be logged directly to the GitHub repository.
• To provide feedback to the development team, please send an email to OpenManageAnsible@Dell.com.

Videos:

Out-of-Band Firmware Update on a PowerEdge Server Using OpenManage Ansible Modules

Duration: 00:02:04 (hh:mm:ss)
When available, closed caption (subtitles) language settings can be chosen using the CC icon on this video player.