Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller 9 User's Guide

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iDRAC9 Group Manager

Group Manager enables user to have multiple console experience and offers simplified basic iDRAC management.

iDRAC Group Manager feature is available for Dell 14th generation servers. It offers simplified basic management of iDRAC and associated servers on the local network using the iDRAC GUI. Group Manager allows 1XMany console experience without involving a separate application. It allows the users to view the details of a set of servers by permitting more powerful management than by inspecting servers visually for faults and other manual methods.

Group manager is a licensed feature and part of the Enterprise license. Only iDRAC admin users can access the Group Manager functionality.

NOTE: For better user experience Group Manager supports up to 250 server nodes.

NOTE: Following PowerEdge platforms provides functionality of the Group Manager through the Management Module/Console.

PowerEdge MX740C
PowerEdge MX750C
PowerEdge MX840C

For these particular platforms, it is not recommended to use group manager as it may cause iDRAC sluggishness, slowness, and failures in iDRAC updates. Instead you can use iDRAC Management Module console or MX 7000 Chassis Management Module Console.

Group Manager

To use Group Manager feature, you must enable the Group Manager from iDRAC index page or on the Group Manager Welcome screen. The group manager welcome screen provides options listed in the below table.

Table 1. Options in Group ManagerOptions in Group Manager
Option	Description
Join Existing Group	Allows you to join an existing group, you must know the GroupName and Passcode to join a specific group. NOTE:Passwords are associated to iDRAC user credentials. Whereas, a passcode is associated to a group to establish authenticated device communication between different iDRACs in the same group.
Create New Group	Allows you to create a new group. The specific iDRAC which has created the group would be the master (primary controller) of the group.
Disable Group Manager for this System	You can select this option in case you do not want to join any group from a specific system. However, you can access Group Manager at any time by selecting Open Group Manager from the iDRAC index page. Once you disable the group manager, user must wait for 60 s to perform any further group manager operations.

Once the group manager feature is enabled, that iDRAC allows you the option to create or join an iDRAC local group. More than one iDRAC group can be set up in the local network but an individual iDRAC can only be a member of one group at a time. To change group (join a new group) the iDRAC must first leave its current group and then join the new group. The iDRAC from where the group was created gets chosen as the primary controller of the group by default. The user does not define a dedicated group manager primary controller to control that group. The primary controller hosts the group manager web interface and provides the GUI-based work flows. The iDRAC members self-select a new primary controller for the group if the current primary goes offline for a prolonged duration, but that does not have any impact on the end user. You can normally access the group manager from all iDRAC members by clicking group manager from the iDRAC index page.