HP Server Management For Dummies -...

Open the book and find:

•An overview of the server management lifecycle

•The benefits of HP server management software and hardware

•Best practices on maintaining your servers

•Some helpful online resources

Go to Dummies.com® for videos, step-by-step examples,

how-to articles, or to shop!

Managing a server might sound easy enough, but imagine trying to manage dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of servers in one location or in a distributed environment. Well, you can put away the travel apps and cancel those plane tickets — this book shows how you can use HP server management to support your servers no matter where you are or what happens.

•Manageyourservers—useHPservermanagementtokeepyourserversrunningoptimally

•Discoverpotentialissues—makeyourservers“phonehome”whentheyexperienceproblems

•Restassuredyou’recovered—makesureanyreplacementpartsyouneedarriveon-timeandintherightlocations,evenbeforeyouknowyouneedthem

Reduce costs and time associated with server management!

ISBN: 978-1-118-91276-8Client Tracking Number: 4AA5-2647ENWNot for resale

John SchmitzDiana ZavalaWendy SheffieldBob NollerMaryJane Vazquez

•About customer challenges with day-to-day server management

• How HP server management can save you time and money

• About the entire HP server management product family

Learn:

HPServerManagement

Complimentsof

These materials are © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Any dissemination, distribution, or unauthorized use is strictly prohibited.

by John Schmitz, Diana Zavala, Wendy Sheffield, Bob Noller,

and MaryJane Vazquez

HP Server Management


HP Server Management For Dummies® Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River St. Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774 www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

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Table of ContentsIntroduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

About This Book ........................................................................ 1Icons Used in This Book ............................................................ 2Beyond the Book ........................................................................ 2

Chapter 1: Why Server Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3Assessing Your Server Management Needs ........................... 3The Server Management Lifecycle ........................................... 4

Setup ................................................................................. 5Monitor ............................................................................. 6Adjust ................................................................................ 6Support ............................................................................. 7

Chapter 2: Using HP Ser ver Management for Fun and Profit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9

The Server Management Lifecycle ........................................... 9Setup ................................................................................ 10Monitor ........................................................................... 11Adjust .............................................................................. 12Support ........................................................................... 12HP Server Management Portfolio ............................... 14

Chapter 3: Deploying and Maintaining Your Servers with On-System Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15

Lights Out! ................................................................................. 15How do you deploy new servers? ............................... 16How do you maintain firmware and software

on servers? ................................................................. 17How do you address servers that fail or are

degraded? ................................................................... 19What does it mean to be agentless? ............................ 19How do you manage servers in remote locations? ... 20Defining iLO Licensing .................................................. 20


HP Server Management For Dummies iv

Chapter 4: HP OneView: A New Approach to Converged Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23

Modern Architecture ............................................................... 23One Model, One Data, One View ............................................ 24

Focused for converged productivity ........................... 25Appliance simplicity ...................................................... 25Easy-to-use, streamlined user interface ...................... 25Software-defined infrastructure to

standardize best practices ....................................... 26Simplify Using Virtual Connect .............................................. 27Manage from Anywhere .......................................................... 28Optimize Your Energy Environment...................................... 28Monitor Infrastructure Health ................................................ 29Update Firmware Effectively .................................................. 29Provision Servers Quickly ....................................................... 30Integrate, Automate, and Customize ..................................... 31Integrate with Enterprise Managers ...................................... 32Solid Security with Easy Licensing ........................................ 33

Chapter 5: Monitoring and Supporting Your Servers Anywhere, Anytime from the Cloud . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35

Getting to Know HP Insight Online ........................................ 35Personalized dashboard for at-a-glance status .......... 36Simplification through automation ............................. 37Simplified management of contracts

and warranties ........................................................... 38Stay informed of your support cases .......................... 39Insight Online reports ................................................... 39Securing your IT data .................................................... 39Sharing information with Channel Partners ............... 40

Choosing the Best Remote Support Tool.............................. 40

Chapter 6: Ten Benefits of HP Ser ver Management . . .43


Introduction

S erver administrators spend plenty of time and energy keep-ing their servers in good shape — it’s not uncommon for

administrators to spend up to 80 percent of their time simply keeping servers up and running. Administrators must set up new servers, monitor their health, optimize servers for peak performance, and support servers when degraded or failed. In this book, we refer to this process as server management. Server management can be a daunting responsibility given today’s large and distributed data centers.

This book introduces you to a lifecycle approach to server management. You can use this lifecycle to clearly identify the essential administrative tasks performed over the life of a server. Once you identify your particular needs and life-cycle steps, this book also introduces you to how HP tools and capabilities can be brought to bear to easily address these essential server management tasks — through the entire lifecycle.

About This BookThis book details server management challenges so you can understand which HP server management tool is right for your particular business need. You’ll see all of these HP tools and use cases outlined very clearly inside this book, and you’ll be able to remove the mystery and guesswork of server management.

We also discuss the portfolio of HP’s server management approach, including three fundamental categories of tools that individually or together can help you tackle your typi-cal server administrative tasks.

This book was written with and for HP.


HP Server Management For Dummies 2

Icons Used in This BookFrom time time to time, you’ll see a few icons hanging out in the margins, trying to attract your attention.

If you need to keep something in mind as you go through the book, that information appears next to this icon.

A little extra information never hurts. You can bypass this info if you want, but don’t be afraid to come back to it later.

Definitely pay attention to this icon. Things might blow up if you don’t.

Feel like nerding out a bit? Check out this icon for in-depth technical information.

Beyond the BookYou can check out more information about HP products and services at the following websites:

✓ www.hp.com/hpservermanagement

✓ www.hp.com/go/ilo

✓ www.hp.com/go/hpsum

✓ www.hp.com/go/hponeview

✓ www.hp.com/go/insightonline/info


http://www.hp.com/hpservermanagement

http://www.hp.com/go/ilo

http://www.hp.com/go/hpsum

http://www.hp.com/go/hponeview

http://www.hp.com/go/insightonline/info

Chapter 1

Why Server ManagementIn This Chapter▶ Examining the challenges you face operating your servers

▶ Introducing the server management lifecycle framework

▶ Understanding the benefits of server management

A lthough you don’t have to crank up your servers manu-ally every morning like an old-timey car, care and mainte-

nance of these precious boxes can still consume a large amount of your time. Wouldn’t you like to get some of that time back to spend on other projects, more strategic planning, or, maybe some new smartphone apps? This chapter introduces you to the benefits behind simplified maintenance and upkeep pro-cesses for your servers known as server management and gives tips on how you can reclaim that precious admin time.

The chapter also explains exactly what we mean by server management and details the essential administrative steps in the life of a server. We sort the big challenges into logical tasks, breaking server management down into easy chunks for processing.

Assessing Your Server Management Needs

Server experts and novices alike spend a lot of time perform-ing essential tasks required to keep servers up and running each day (and night). These tasks typically don’t differ much from server to server — and perhaps IT folks like you handle some of these tasks yourself. Do any of these scenarios seem familiar?


HP Server Management For Dummies 4 ✓ My server in a remote location failed, and I had to spend

company funds to travel to its location to fix it.

✓ My users sometimes know when a server fails before I do.

✓ It takes a lot of time to maintain the software and firm-ware on my servers. Plus, I need to bring down my server for hours each time I perform updates.

✓ I can’t tell if my server is under warranty, nor can I tell if I have the right spare parts on hand if something goes wrong.

Now multiply these typical occurrences across your data center with an ever-increasing number of servers, and you probably consume every ounce of your energy and every minute of your workday (even overtime). That’s why anybody dealing with serv-ers (and the challenges they bring with them) needs to under-stand what effective server management looks like and how it can benefit you during your day-to-day administrative tasks.

The Server Management Lifecycle

This section explains a basic server management lifecycle framework. This management framework describes the essen-tial stages in the life of a server and the typical activities per-formed by server administrators. Flip to Chapter 2 to find out more about HP tools available to manage each stage of the server management lifecycle.

Each server travels through stages of life. Some other lifecycle models show additional lifecycle stages (and some companies use different names). Still, this server management lifecycle remains largely the same for most customers. Take a look at Figure 1-1 to see the four stages of the server management lifecycle.

Setup represents the act of getting a server up and running for the first time. The monitor stage begins after a server is up and running. You must monitor server health to ensure your server remains up and running. The adjust stage occurs when you need to make small tweaks to any underperforming server.


Chapter 1: Why Server Management 5If the server needs more detailed special attention (such as for a degraded component like a hard drive or a total server failure), you enter a support stage.

Figure 1-1: The server management lifecycle.

You can’t race your server at 100 miles per hour on the freeway, but other than the fact that you can’t drive it, try to think of your server as a car. You must take care of it, occasionally give it a tune-up, and otherwise maintain this finely engineered piece of machinery.

Chapter 2 introduces you to the HP offerings suited for each server management lifecycle stage.

Setup The moment a server settles into a rack or blade enclosure, connects to a networking cable, and powers on, that server is ready for setup. This bare-metal server can now receive an operating system image, firmware and drivers, and other basic server configurations.

Setup tasks can grow in both the amount of time required and complexity, based on the number and location of your servers. You may have just a few servers in a single location that can make setup relatively quick and easy. You may also bear the responsibility for data centers with thousands of servers requir-ing complex setup processes stretching over days or weeks of administration time (lucky you!). Setup efforts can grow even bigger when servers reside in remote locations with few or no available IT staff.



MonitorThe best server stays up and running at optimal conditions. A slow or nonfunctional server can halt user applications, resulting in less productivity. And less productivity equals less revenue. Bad, bad, bad.

This is where monitoring comes in: The ability to see the health of your server and be alerted to problem areas is critical. The most basic form of monitoring involves you standing in front of your servers and looking for red warning lights, or waiting for a phone call from users when their application fails. Not only does this process invite trouble instead of preventing it, but you’ll get very sleepy and bored. And you simply can’t be there for all your servers if those servers live in remote locations. Travel to remote sites is expensive and inefficient, and watching thousands of servers manually is impossible. You need man-agement tools to monitor all your servers, either in one location or in remote locations.

Do any of these problems sound familiar?

✓ My users often know if a server failed before I do.

✓ I am concerned about hot spots in my data center. Temper-atures can exceed normal operating levels, and I can’t tell when those events will occur.

✓ My servers use too much power, and I just can’t tell when this occurs.

Now try to handle all these tasks with your current IT staff (if you even have an IT staff). Think about monitoring your ever-increasing numbers of servers with your current resources and what tools you’ll need to make that task possible. Turn to Chapter 2 to find out about some tools to help you become more efficient. Not that we can guarantee superpowers or any-thing, but these tools will certainly make you seem like a hero.

AdjustEven after a server is up and running, it may require occasional adjustments to improve its overall performance. For example have you ever noticed these situation occurring in your IT data centers?


Chapter 1: Why Server Management 7 ✓ My server is running more slowly than normal.

✓ My applications require new versions of operating systems.

✓ My servers aren’t safe from hackers; I may be vulnerable to system gaps.

✓ My server vendor suggests I update firmware and/or soft-ware, and I’m concerned that there will be downtime.

The number one cost of operating most data centers is elec-trical energy bills. You need to monitor your electrical use so that you know how much is available, how much you con-sume on a regular basis, whether you’re close to maxing out on power usage, and whether it fluctuates or not. Once you know that, you can look for ways to cut electrical costs.

You also need to perform routine maintenance on your servers to keep them up-to-date with the latest firmware and drivers Think about it. How much time do you spend maintaining the firmware and software drivers on your severs? And how do you ensure that you apply updates safely? It’s possible to cause a server failure if there are errors in the software deployment process or if the new patches weren’t tested together and aren’t compatible. All these issues can cause server outages and waste your valuable time.

SupportDespite all the time and effort you put into monitoring and adjusting your active servers, bad things still happen. It’s a fact of life — unfortunately you must spend some of your time preparing for disaster. Doing nothing is never an option, so you have to plan for failures from hard drives, fans, or power supplies. When bad things do happen, you need to know all the available information about the problem, get the spare parts, and fix the issue as quickly as possible. You also need to know whether your server remains under warranty (and how to proceed with your case from there).

Think about how wonderful a server that calls and notifies sup-port staff of problems before the catastrophic occurs would be. How useful would you find that call if it occurred without your IT staff having to prompt it?

Chapter 2 talks about how HP can track, support, and provide spare parts.




Chapter 2

Using HP Ser ver Management for

Fun and ProfitIn This Chapter▶ Examining HP server management offerings

▶ Understanding how HP manages your server lifecycle

▶ Learning the benefits of server management

T he chapter title might be a little misleading: Server man-agement doesn’t necessarily lend itself to frivolity and

excess wealth. But server management does help you avoid lost profit due to downtime. So take this chapter title with a grain of salt, but be aware that server management truly can improve your work life — and read on to discover how HP server management keeps you on the right path.

The Server Management Lifecycle

In this chapter, we show you what HP offers to help server administrators like yourself tackle each of these areas and reap the following benefits:

✓ Improved IT staff efficiency

✓ Reduced unplanned server downtime

✓ Lowered server ownership costs



SetupYour bare-metal server needs an operating system, installed firmware and software drivers, and basic server configurations. The following sections go over the HP tools that will fulfill your server’s dreams.

HP Intelligent ProvisioningEvery HP ProLiant server includes HP Intelligent Provisioning. This easy-to-use tool is used to configure ProLiant servers with a Microsoft, Linux, or VMware operating system, as well as land the necessary HP drivers. This tool is smart enough to actually pull the latest firmware and drivers from hp.com as well. HP Intelligent Provisioning helps you automate the pro-cess of installing and configuring new ProLiant servers in the fastest and simplest manner.

Intelligent Provisioning is embedded within every HP ProLiant server. It replaces the SmartStart CDs that shipped with previ-ous generation HP servers.

HP iLO Virtual MediaYou may not have to brave extreme weather conditions or daunting travel, but managing servers in remote locations can be challenging. Reimaging a server in a remote location can be even harder. iLO (Integrated Lights out) Virtual Media allows you to turn your hard media into a virtual image you can implement on a server in a remote location. Save the plane ticket and the parka: HP handles this task with ease.

We describe Intelligent Provisioning and iLO capabilities in more detail in Chapter 3.

HP Insight Control server provisioningThe first two tools in this section are ideal for single-server deployments. But think about when you have to deploy an operating system to hundreds or thousands of servers. You need a tool that can scale, and Insight Control server provi-sioning (ICsp) is ideal for your multiserver environment.

HP OneView (discussed more in Chapter 4) includes the ICsp capabilities.


Chapter 2: Using HP Server Management for Fun and Profit 11

MonitorIt’s paramount to your business and your users that servers stay up and running, that’s why you need to monitor a working server to check on its actual health and performance. The fol-lowing sections discuss three tools that HP offers for specific monitoring situations.

HP iLO ManagementiLO Management provides the foundation for all HP Server man-agement. Each and every HP server includes an integrated iLO chip that continuously captures essential server health informa-tion and sends alerts back to server administrators. iLO can capture server information whether the server is off or up and running.

Turn to Chapter 3 and to find out more about the features available in iLO.

HP OneViewNo doubt you like the level of detail available in iLO Manage-ment. But you have hundreds or maybe even thousands of serv-ers and an iLO tool doesn’t present a dashboard view of your entire data center. If you’re looking for such a view, you’re in luck: HP OneView provides a comprehensive yet simple-to-use dashboard that displays server status at a glance across each and every server. This tool is a lot easier to manage than click-ing from server to server (and easier on your fingers as well!).

Check out Chapter 4 to see HP OneView monitoring and com-prehensive provisioning capabilities available for servers, storage, and networking.

HP Insight OnlineWhat if you need to monitor a number of servers remotely — even outside the premises of your company’s data center? Perhaps you even want to authorize your trusted channel partner to manage your devices. HP can provide Insight Online as the ideal tool for you. Insight Online provides comprehen-sive device monitoring for small and large data centers from the HP cloud. You’ll receive secure access anytime, anywhere, and at no cost to you.


HP Server Management For Dummies 12 If this tool sounds appealing, take a closer look at Chapter 5 to

learn more about HP Insight Online.

AdjustAdjusting and optimizing server performance is a key part of server management. You must manage system software or adjust how servers consume electricity. Regardless of the situation, HP offers server management tools that are right for the job. The following sections describe HP Smart Update and HP OneView — both essential for adjusting servers and optimizing performance.

HP Smart UpdateHP takes firmware and software updates seriously. And HP Smart Update helps administrators make system software updates efficiently and consistently. Use the powerful HP Smart Update Manager (HP SUM) tool to deploy packaged Service Packs for ProLiant (SPP) and keep your ProLiant servers on the most current and correct system software.

HP OneView: Power CappingData centers burn a lot of power. The most expensive element in data centers these days is the electrical power used. HP implements capabilities to help cap or limit the power sucked up by an individual server or groups of servers. Power-capping capabilities reside in HP OneView today.

You can learn more about HP OneView in Chapter 4.

SupportSometimes servers and the components inside your servers need special attention. They need some tender loving care like replacing bad parts. Who do you call for support, spare parts, and service? HP makes support as simple and easy as possible (in some cases, that support is even automatic). The following sections explain the various HP Support elements available to you.


Chapter 2: Using HP Server Management for Fun and Profit 13

HP Insight Online for tracking server warrantyEvery new HP server comes with a warranty. That warranty typically spans a three-year period and provides you support from a trained professional in the event you need help with your HP server. Each server comes with a special support agreement, so dealing with the warranty status of hundreds or thousands of servers may overwhelm you.

HP Insight Online and even HP OneView can help. These tools automatically record and track the age of each and every server warranty, and let you know when you need to renew a server support contract to keep it under warranty.

HP OneView for automated spare part managementYour server can report its status directly to HP, and that status includes whether field replacement devices like hard drives, fans, and power supplies have failed or appear to be in a degrad ed state. After receiving such an alert, HP will automati-cally send a replacement spare part directly to your receiving dock free of charge with no questions asked. This completely automated and free solution ensures that you receive the right spare parts at the right time. However, we must caution that HP isn’t able to supply you with snacks the moment you feel the pangs of hunger. You will simply have to rely on the office vending machine to meet those needs.

HP Technical Support and Software UpdateHP management tools arrive with help in the form of both technical support from HP and rights to new software updates. If you get stuck and have questions on any HP server manage-ment offering, you can call HP and get your questions addressed by a trained HP professional. In addition, your HP server man-agement license entitles you to free software updates and upgrades for a specific period of time (anywhere from one to three or more years depending on your product and agreement selected).

Although they can’t help with Thanksgiving turkey tips or clean-ing advice, HP trusts you’ll still enjoy this support offering.



HP Server Management Portfolio HP offers tools and capabilities across the entire server man-agement lifecycle. These offerings group into three categories:

✓ On System Management

✓ On Premises Management

✓ On Cloud Management

Take a look at Figure 2-1 to review these categories. Chapter 3 covers On System content in more detail. Chapter 4 covers On Premise and Chapter 5 focuses on On Cloud content.

Figure 2-1: The HP Server Management portfolio.


Chapter 3

Deploying and Maintaining Your Servers with

On-System ManagementIn This Chapter▶ Deploying your new servers

▶ Maintaining firmware and software updates on servers

▶ Addressing failed or degraded servers

▶ Understanding agentless maintenance

▶ Managing servers in remote locations

O n-System management (management available on every single server) helps you manage your servers easily

from wherever you need to be. In this chapter, we explain how you can get started with your server deployment and updates. We also discuss the On-System management products you can use to make your life easier.

Lights Out!HP Integrated Lights-Out Management (iLO) is an embedded management process involving a separate microprocessor chip. As of this published edition, HP uses the fourth iteration of the iLO product. These management capabilities come as part of the server and are always available. They help you sup-port the server lifecycle from initial installation through daily


HP Server Management For Dummies 16management tasks. You can use iLO Management to interact with the server in four ways:

✓ Simplify initial server setup via Intelligent Provisioning

✓ Monitor server health via Active Health System

✓ Optimize power usage and thermal management via iLO

✓ Allow remote server administration via iLO

Understand that iLO Management exists separately from the rest of the server (known as out-of-band management) and uses its own operating system. ( Think of it as the command center that directs your server). iLO Management includes the following components:

✓ An intelligent microprocessor

✓ Secure memory

✓ Out-of-band management via a shared network environment

iLO remains always available, even when the server suffers some type of failure. You can use iLO to determine precisely what went wrong when a failure occurs and to fix it quickly. These separate pieces of hardware allow iLO to provide man-agement that doesn’t interfere with normal server activity or impact server performance.

How do you deploy new servers? Deploying the server means preparing and installing the oper-ating system (OS), installing firmware and software, and set-ting basic server configurations.

Depending on the size of your environment, HP provides two deployment solutions for you: Intelligent Provisioning and Scripting Toolkit.

Intelligent ProvisioningHP provides Intelligent Provisioning for SMB customers. Intel-ligent Provisioning enables you to deploy and update servers out-of-the-box without the need for HP configuration CDs or DVDs. Intelligent Provisioning is embedded into the server within the iLO Management microprocessor.


17 Chapter 3: Maintaining Your Servers with On-System Management

Intelligent Provisioning eliminates a large percentage of server setup, configuration, and deployment steps previously required with configuration media. Plus, you can quickly provision many systems in the same way by using Intelligent Provisioning’s Deployment Settings feature or by scripting with the Scripting Toolkit.

Intelligent Provisioning includes the following features:

✓ A Guided User Interface (GUI) for simple navigation and usability. Starting with HP ProLiant Gen8 servers, you can use this tool to deploy your server very quickly.

✓ Embedded diagnostic and maintenance capabilities.

✓ An Easy Deployment Settings feature for configuring sev-eral ProLiant servers the same way.

Scripting Toolkit for Windows & LinuxThe HP Scripting Toolkit (STK) for Windows and Linux provides flexible scripting to automate steps in HP ProLiant server config-urations. STK provides configuration scripting for deploying high volumes of ProLiant servers rapidly to free up IT resources, deliver consistent server configurations, and cut deployment time.

How do you maintain firmware and software on servers? All servers require periodic maintenance to update firmware and drivers for the server, its options, and infrastructure. The goal is to limit the amount of time servers are down during maintenance and updates.

The HP Smart Update solution limits downtime by offering online updates that you only need to perform once per year. You’ll see more stable servers that require less maintenance, and you can make any changes you need immediately to make sure your specific needs get the attention they deserve.

The HP Smart Update solution provides firmware and driver update capabilities. With it, the update process becomes more reliable.


HP Server Management For Dummies 18 Don’t reboot any more than you have to! HP Smart Update

packages updates together and manages sequencing and inter dependency.

Smart Update offers the following:

✓ HP Service Pack for ProLiant (SPP): HP SPP delivers firmware, drivers, and tools for supported HP ProLiant server and HP BladeSystem infrastructure. HP tests the SPP with specific attention to interaction between firm-ware, drivers, and utilities. With this tool, you only need to update your environment once a year.

✓ HP Smart Update Manager (SUM): HP SUM simplifies the update process, making HP ProLiant servers much easier to manage. HP SUM is an application that installs and updates firmware and drivers on local or remote HP ProLiant servers, options, and HP BladeSystem infra-structure. The tool provides both a graphical user inter-face (GUI) and a scriptable command line interface (CLI). HP SUM supports online updates in Microsoft Windows, Linux, and VMware environments. Additionally, HP SUM offers comprehensive reporting in support of compliance management.

Figure 3-1 displays how the Smart Update solution works:

Figure 3-1: The Smart Update solution process.

HP SUM includes a hardware and software discovery engine that ascertains the installed hardware and current versions of firmware and software drivers in use on nodes. This capa-bility prevents extraneous network traffic by sending only the required components to a target host. HP SUM correctly sequences and installs updates in the correct order and helps ensure all dependencies are met before deploying an update. The tool also prevents version-based dependencies from com-promising an installation.


Chapter 3: Maintaining Your Servers with On-System Management 19

How do you address servers that fail or are degraded?Just as a doctor monitors the health of a patient or a mechanic the health of a car, you can monitor the health of your server. In each case, the practitioner uses a standardized set of tools to perform a standard check on the person or device. The Active Health System (part of the iLO microprocessor) actually performs three kinds of checks for you so that you can deter-mine your server’s health:

✓ Health: The actual status of hardware and software

✓ Configuration: How the server is set up for use

✓ Run-time telemetry: Real-time server statistics, such as how hard the hard drive is working

iLO checks server health once a week, but you can order a manual check if you suspect something is wrong.

What does it mean to be agentless?An agent instance of software runs on a client-server system. Whenever a server needs to perform a task on the client, that server contacts the client through the agent. The agent acts as an intermediary and allows the server to perform required tasks, such as a backup or installing applications, without requiring the client machine’s user to become involved. Many computer configurations rely on agents to perform essential tasks. However, using an agent poses a number of problems for the client, including

✓ Opening potential security holes

✓ Using client resources that could be better used to run applications

✓ Interfering with client operations

Using an agentless management approach makes it possible for iLO to update both clients and servers without incurring any of these problems. As a result, your setup is both more secure and reliable. And who doesn’t want that?



How do you manage servers in remote locations?You aren’t always going to be in the office waiting to perform a task. Most people have lives that require them to be some-where else. With this in mind, iLO makes it easy to perform tasks from another location.

These applications make it possible to perform general server maintenance tasks, including rebooting the server when nec-essary. Obviously, you won’t need to reboot your server very often, but you want to perform this operation quickly and effi-ciently when you do.

Most of the tasks you perform from a remote location tend to be a little more mundane. For example, you could load a new application on the server. In fact, you can even load something as complex as a new version of an operating system (OS) if necessary.

Defining iLO LicensingYour server arrives with iLO Standard. This version provides a web-based interface you can use to monitor the server. You can also use the Secure Shell/Command Line Interface (SSH/CLI) to interact with your server by typing commands or running scripts, but most users find graphical interfaces far easier to use.

These two interfaces provide you with access to the health monitoring features, virtual power control, and Intelligent Platform Management Interface/Data Center Management Interface (IPMI/DCMI). Even when the power is off, you can pull everything together and manage your operations. IPMI/DCMI lets you access a standardized interface for out-of-band man-agement of server systems. Table 3-1 shows the value of iLO Standard (which ships with the server), the three iLO licensing levels, and the features provided at each level.

The iLO licensing levels provide you with added functional-ity for interacting with your server and switch. Whether you need these extra features depends on the size and complexity


Chapter 3: Maintaining Your Servers with On-System Management 21of your network and the kinds of tasks you perform. The fol-lowing sections will help you determine which license is best for your business.

Table 3-1 iLO4 Licensing LevelsFeatures iLO

StandardiLO Essentials

iLO Scale-Out

iLO Advanced

Security: Kerberos support

✓

Virtual Media (deploy servers)

✓ ✓

Remote Console (Virtual KVM )

Pre-OS only

✓ Pre-OS only

✓

Console Collaboration Mode

Up to 6 Server Admins

Video Record/Playback

✓ ✓

SSH Text Console (TextCons)

✓ ✓

Email Alerting ✓ ✓ ✓

Remote Syslog ✓ ✓

Power Mgmt. (24hr, dynamic cap)

✓ ✓

Health Monitoring

✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Web-based GUI ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Virtual Power Control

✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

SSH/CLI ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

IPMI/DCMI ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓



HP iLO Essentials licenseHP iLO Essentials provides small and medium businesses with a license offering for remote server management, uniquely designed to meet your specific needs. The license gives you more value for your investment and allows you to grow your business with confidence.

HP iLO Scale-Out licenseHP iLO Scale-Out (intended for web hosting and service providers) provides advanced power management and fast access through scripting tools and lowering operational cost. You can use this license in massive scale-out environments for maximum data center efficiency.

HP iLO Advanced licenseHP iLO Advanced license and iLO Advanced for BladeSystem (for enterprise business) give you premium remote functionality:

✓ A graphical remote console with multi-user collaboration

✓ Video record/playback

✓ Access to on-the-go use of the graphical remote console from a tablet or smartphone via the iLO Mobile Application

✓ Many more advanced features to support your enterprise data center


Chapter 4

HP OneView: A New Approach

to Converged ManagementIn This Chapter▶ Understanding new approaches for managing servers, storage, and

networks

▶ Discovering the capabilities and benefits of converged management

▶ Integrating, automating, and customizing solutions using the REST API

H P OneView presents a new approach to converged man-agement inspired by the way you expect to work. It pro-

vides a single integrated view of your IT infrastructure. This chapter describes the OneView approach and explains how this architecture can help you better manage all your physical infrastructure: servers, storage, and networks.

Modern ArchitectureThe modern architecture in HP OneView was designed to manage servers, storage, and networking in a unified manner. This management architecture features the following:

✓ A single, collaborative management platform built for speed — a single platform that allows IT teams to work and collaborate in a more automated way.

✓ Software that captures best practices and automates life-cycle management to reduce the cost and time to deliver IT services.


HP Server Management For Dummies 24 ✓ An open development platform designed to rapidly adapt

to your business needs, with a programmable REST API that allows you to scale to the cloud.

HP OneView addresses the challenges of manual operations, human error, and limited flexibility, which are encountered in virtualized HP BladeSystem and Rack server environments. These architectural optimizations are easily noticed in new BladeSystem environments, particularly when used with HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage systems.

HP OneView wraps common processes, configurations, and best practices into software that automatically deploys and manages infrastructure repeatedly, reliably, and at scale (as shown in Figure 4-1). As additional capabilities are implemented, the benefits of this architectural approach for converged man-agement become increasingly apparent.

Figure 4-1: HP OneView architecture.

One Model, One Data, One ViewHP OneView handles the entire hardware lifecycle, from initial configuration to ongoing monitoring and maintenance of both logical resources (such as server profiles, networks, and con-nections) and physical resources (including servers, intercon-nects, and enclosures).

This architecture provides a single view of your infrastructure, using models and common representations of the servers, networks, and storage in your system to show you everything that happens in your network. Everybody on your team can


Chapter 4: A New Approach to Converged Management 25see what’s going on and what they need to do to keep the systems functional. Increased productivity is the net result of having all teams focus on the same model, with the same data, using a unified team view.

Focused for converged productivityProductivity in a converged environment results from a focus on specific value delivered for the HP OneView users.

Appliance simplicityThe HP OneView management appliance manages your serv-er’s lifecycle and provisions, monitors, updates, and repairs your infrastructure. HP delivers OneView as a virtual appli-ance running in a VMware ESXi or Microsoft HyperV virtual machine. You can schedule and perform appliance backups while the HP OneView appliance is online using encrypted files to protect configuration settings and data.

Don’t worry if you use Windows, Linux, or a mix of OS types on your servers. HP OneView doesn’t play favorites and remains agnostic to whatever you want to use.

Easy-to-use, streamlined user interfaceHP OneView streamlines day-to-day responsibilities by pro-viding a single interface designed for the way you think and work. The easy-to-use tools feature a quick (200 millisecond) response time and eliminate time-consuming process steps and tasks. Longer tasks continue to run to completion in the background. These tools include

✓ Dashboard for capacity and health info summaries, with the ability to drill down into specific details as desired.

✓ MapView to visualize the relationships between your devices to the highest levels of your infrastructure.

✓ Smart Search finds all inventory elements, at any time, to give you instant information.


HP Server Management For Dummies 26 ✓ Activity View to display and filter all tasks and alerts.

✓ Mobile access using a modern, HTML5 user interface.

The single integrated platform provides a single view to manage your converged infrastructure, while collaborating with your team members using the best info for the situation.

Software-defined infrastructure to standardize best practicesCapturing and standardizing your best practices is at the heart of HP OneView architecture. The software-defined infrastruc-ture in HP OneView delivers the best practices to you in a usable, repeatable form. These steps also allow for the cus-tomizations you’ll need to improvise for various situations.

HP architects this software-defined infrastructure to help your administrators specify configurations and build them for your environment. (See Figure 4-2.) These software structures enable you to quickly and consistently provision hundreds of enclo-sures, servers, or storage arrays — or to roll out changes.

Figure 4-2: HP OneView software-defined infrastructure with servers and storage.


Chapter 4: A New Approach to Converged Management 27 ✓ Profiles capture the entire configuration for a given

resource into a single place. You can use this profile to enable easy configuration. For example, a server profile defines all the critical characteristics of your server (such as firmware levels, boot order, BIOS settings, and LAN/SAN network connections). You can assign the pro-file to any supported hardware without rebuilding or resetting any of these factors.

✓ Groups provide specific recipes for building all or part of your infrastructure environment (such as for a workload type). Your own experts define the recipes and specify the capabilities and constraints. These recipes can then be delivered to lower-level administrators to be replicated elsewhere. Enclosure groups for physical arrangements, and logical interconnect groups for logical connections work with all important tasks and can scale your infra-structure with your best practices already embedded.

✓ Sets allow you to designate collections of resource groups by a single name. For example, a network set uses a single name for a collection of Ethernet links. Sets provide easy reuse and assignments that scale quickly.

Productivity savings result from well-designed and repeatable processes standardized on software-defined structures.

Simplify Using Virtual ConnectHP Virtual Connect provides an environment that you can create once and change as much as you want. Your admins can manage their dynamic network environment at the server edge for various types of Virtual Connect environments:

✓ Single enclosures, and racks of enclosures in a data enter

✓ Across data centers

✓ Fibre Channel, Ethernet, FlexFabric

Profiles, logical interconnect groups, and network sets simplify the management of Virtual Connect environments and enable rapid deployment of configurations based on best practices. See the section “Software-defined infrastructure to standardize best practices” for more on these topics.


HP Server Management For Dummies 28 Active-Active configurations in Virtual Connect provide more

predictable server-to-network-core traffic patterns, and faster link failure detection and failover times. Manage your traffic, discover the problems, and fix them before a crisis arises.

Manage from AnywhereHP OneView licenses HP iLO Advanced as a comprehensive lights-out remote management solution for ProLiant servers. This environment management solution includes numerous key features to help solve complex IT problems.

HP OneView provides many capabilities, including remote access to server power control and event logs with a graphical remote console. This service turns a supported browser into a virtual desktop and gives the user full control over the activi-ties of a remote host server. (Chapter 3 covers HP iLO.)

Optimize Your Energy Environment

HP designed the power monitoring and energy management in HP OneView to scale to the level of your data center. Several key areas for environmental management are integrated:

✓ Power delivery infrastructure representation.

✓ 3D thermal data visualization lets you view the status of your entire data center at a glance. This enables easy identification of hot spots. You can view and manage CPU, power, and thermal data for hundreds of servers.

✓ Power Discovery Services enable automatic discovery and visualization of power delivery topology for your data center using HP’s Intelligent Power Distribution Units (iPDUs) and Platinum level power supplies. Know where the power is going and how much you’re using.

✓ Location Discovery Services provide automatic physical asset location in 3D using HP Intelligent Series Racks. This can save time, lower costs, and eliminate human errors associated with inventory and asset management.


Chapter 4: A New Approach to Converged Management 29 Manual input of locations is also allowed, in case you

don’t have the automated discovery capability.

✓ Utilization dashboards and historical graphs help identify poor-performing servers and improve power utilization.

HP OneView environment management also provides dash-boards and historical graphs to help you track and improve your power utilization so you can save on your operating expenses. Good environment management can extend data center capacity and save you a lot of money.

Monitor Infrastructure HealthHP OneView simplifies monitoring by providing a streamlined and modern alert management architecture. Summary views of detailed hardware and firmware inventory information are provided, with HP Smart Search support for finding specific element information.

HP automatically configures monitoring when you add man-aged resources to the appliance. This configuration includes the automatic registration of SNMP traps and the scheduling of health data collection. This service immediately monitors these resources without forcing you to invoke additional con-figuration or discovery steps.

Agentless and out-of-band features increase the security and reliability for all monitored data center devices. There should be no OS software or no open SNMP ports on the host OS. Zero downtime updates for the embedded agents can be performed. You can view all alerts, filter your alerts, and search your alerts using HP Smart Search. And you can assign alerts to specific users and annotate them with notes.

Update Firmware EffectivelyNobody likes taking chances on firmware updates. HP OneView enables efficient, reliable, nondisruptive, and simple firmware management across the data center with firmware baseline capabilities.


HP Server Management For Dummies 30The HP OneView firmware repository allows you to manage multiple versions of the HP Service Pack for ProLiant (SPP). After you have customized your comprehensive SPP collec-tion of firmware and system software components, HP Smart Update Manager (HP SUM) is utilized to deploy the SPP across your environment, and handle a variety of tasks:

✓ Identify firmware compatibility issues, to establish a firm-ware baseline or a desired state.

✓ Add devices while checking minimum firmware levels and highlighting out-of-compliance devices.

✓ Apply firmware baselines to servers as a part of a profile.

HP OneView updates are driven with server profiles and can be automated to simplify configuration change management across your data center, using your own business practices.

The management LAN performs all firmware updates without impacting your production LAN in any way.

Provision Servers QuicklyHP OneView provides a complete solution for multiserver OS and firmware provisioning to ProLiant and BladeSystem serv-ers. This solution automates the following types of tasks for deploying and provisioning server software to enable quick and easy adaptation to changing business demands:

✓ Multiserver provisioning (through imaging or scripting)

✓ Provisioning of standard server configurations in an auto-mated fashion from a remote web-based console

✓ OS provisioning

✓ Provisioning scripts using HP SmartStart technology

✓ PXE-free deployments

✓ SAN Boot or SAN Attach provisioning support


Chapter 4: A New Approach to Converged Management 31

Integrate, Automate, and Customize

Access the full power of the HP OneView management architec-ture using the representational state transfer (REST) API and state-change message bus. Individual customers and software partners can automate, integrate, and customize their manage-ment environment using their favorite scripting or program-ming language using the REST API. (See Figure 4-3.)

Figure 4-3: HP OneView integrations using REST APIs.

The REST API (combined with an HTML5 user interface) allows your custom scripts and integrations to receive notification of all changes to managed resources. Don’t worry about delays — all commands return within 500 milliseconds.

Open integration lets you to address a wide variety of needs:

✓ Automating standard workflows or troubleshooting steps

✓ Integrating in-house user customizations

✓ Automating integrations (for example, CMDB)

✓ Connecting to Service Desks

✓ Monitoring resources

✓ Collecting and exporting data


HP Server Management For Dummies 32 ✓ Mapping and modeling of systems

✓ Attaching custom databases or third-party business tools

Powershell and Python scripts are freely available from HP and provide you with the tools for your in-house craftsmen to create their next work of genius.

Integrate with Enterprise Managers

Partner integrations provide a broader portfolio of enterprise management, service automation, and IT operations solutions for your use. HP OneView integrations can deliver HP hard-ware management capabilities directly from your virtualization console of choice (see Figure 4-4.) The following HP OneView integrations align management of physical resources with management of virtual resources for a seamless user experience using the REST API:

✓ Microsoft System Center

✓ Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV)

✓ VMware vCenter (for Servers, Storage, and Networks)

Figure 4-4: Virtualization console integration with HP OneView.


Chapter 4: A New Approach to Converged Management 33With HP OneView, virtualization administrators have control over capabilities like comprehensive monitoring, remote con-trol, or power optimization that relate directly to the hardware. Administrators may also have access to simplified tasks like these below (from the VMware integration):

✓ Combine physical and virtual views from a single screen, monitoring your end-to-end network and HP Storage also.

✓ Reduce planned and unplanned downtime by automating actions on alerts (pre-failure and failure alerts).

✓ Manage actions remotely from the vCenter console.

✓ Manage power proactively.

✓ Increase capacity-on-demand by deploying hosts on bare-metal ProLiant servers directly from VMware vCenter.

✓ Monitor and deploy firmware on HP ProLiant hosts, with role-based security and with single-sign-on permissions.

HP integrations are free of charge with the purchase of HP OneView. However, partner software is purchased separately.

Solid Security with Easy Licensing

HP OneView provides a secure platform for data center manage-ment. Key security characteristics of the architecture include the separation of data and management planes to avoid take-over in denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, incorporation of best security practices by using groups, and provisioning control to assure standardization in mass deployments.

The management appliance is security-hardened. Security is implemented using a common mechanism to confirm user identification and control access to resources. One admin can quickly set up the authentications and authorizations for users. HP OneView also provides role-based access control, single-sign-on to iLO and Onboard Administrator, and logging of all user actions in an audit log. Control over access is critical!

HP OneView supports both LDAP and Active Directory.


HP Server Management For Dummies 34HP OneView software is licensed per physical server. The pur-chase includes

✓ Three years of 24x7 technical support and update service (TS&U) that ensures rapid access to HP support staff and proactive delivery of software updates.

✓ Web-based training that builds basic product proficiency.

HP OneView software ordered with a server and with factory integration has the license loaded on the server for immediate recognition by the HP OneView appliance. Connect and go!


Chapter 5

Monitoring and Supporting Your Servers Anywhere, Anytime from the Cloud

In This Chapter▶ Introducing HP Insight Online

▶ Choosing a remote support tool

Y ou need to solve IT problems more efficiently and access relevant information quickly. You don’t have time to

spend hours searching for information in files or on the web. You’ve got better things to do than search the web: There are cat photos to look at! This chapter shows you how to lever-age mobile, cloud, and automation technologies so you can access your IT assets and support information from anywhere in the world and share it with others who also need access to it. Having information at your fingertips along with auto-mated support helps you cut costs, save on valuable resources, reduce downtime, and look really good for your boss.

Getting to Know HP Insight Online

HP can help you at a cost you can’t refuse (and not in a creepy gangster movie kind of way). The free On Cloud service works for all levels of IT from a local shop or insurance agency to a remote pipeline, restaurant or retail chain, hospital, or global manufacturing corporation. And HP can size this solution to fit your needs.


HP Server Management For Dummies 36Through the HP Support Center portal, Insight Online can auto-matically display devices remotely monitored by HP using Insight Remote Support software or Insight Online direct con-nect technology. HP’s support automation tools monitor server hardware health, keep track of server configuration informa-tion, and generate service alerts for the server when required. Using the Insight Online personalized dashboard, you can easily track service events and support cases, view device configura-tions, and proactively monitor your HP contracts and warran-ties (including service credit balances). HP offers HP Insight Online and support automation tools at no additional cost as part of your HP warranty or support agreement. Take a look at the Insight Online personalized dashboard for monitoring your device health and support information (shown in Figure 5-1):

Figure 5-1: Insight Online personalized dashboard.

Personalized dashboard for at-a-glance statusThe HP Insight Online dashboard gives you a single, compre-hensive view to manage and support your IT environment. Plus, you can access this information anywhere at anytime. Use the dashboard to monitor and manage devices, events, and support cases — and to check contract and warranty status. HP Insight Online displays personalized information in the context of your IT environment. You can share your IT information with other users within your organization and establish roles for sharing the information. You can also share device information with HP


Chapter 5: Monitoring and Supporting Your Servers 37Authorized Partners for support and recommendations. Share views by setting up a user group of co-workers and linking this with the device group (or groups) you want to share.

Simplification through automationHP’s support automation tools monitor the health of your servers around the clock. And they don’t even require extra coffee. In case of hardware failure, HP service personnel ana-lyze and diagnose the problem and will automatically open a support case for you regardless of the time of day. You don’t have to spend time finding your support contract information, collecting log files, and logging the problem with HP.

Instead, HP (or your HP service partner) will contact you to confirm the failure and verify where to send the part or the service professional to get your server back online as quickly as possible. Within Insight Online, users can view key event information, such as severity, problem description, date and time generated, status, and related support case ID.

Figure 5-2 displays a view of your devices being monitored around the clock for hardware issues. A red icon means that a device has a critical hardware issue and from this view you can easily navigate to more details. A green icon means all is well.

Figure 5-2: HP Insight Online monitoring tools.

From the main dashboard, you can easily navigate to all the details you need for your device (shown in Figure 5-3).



Figure 5-3: Monitored device details.

Simplified management of contracts and warrantiesThis feature enables users to track contract and warranty status by device and by contract. Users can see all their HP contracts, warranties, and Care Packs in a single view or they can create a report with this information (Figure 5-4).

Figure 5-4: Contract and warranty information.

From the Insight Online summary dashboard and at the indi-vidual device level, you will see the status of contracts and warranties. This information indicates whether those contracts


Chapter 5: Monitoring and Supporting Your Servers 39and warranties are expired, expiring in 30 days, or in a year. You can click on any of the status items to see more details, as shown earlier in Figure 5-4.

Stay informed of your support casesYou can track all your support cases by device and by HP Passport ID. This feature includes auto-generated support cases from HP remote support, online submittals, and dial-in cases. You can filter your case list by whether it’s active and closed and easily navigate to more details, or you can filter by keywords to find cases of interest. You can also open a case directly from an individual device with all the relevant details automatically captured to save you time. Or you can have HP monitor your devices with their support automation tools, and you won’t have to open a case. HP takes care of every-thing you need except the hot cocoa you like at night. You still have to do some things for yourself!

Insight Online reportsYou can generate reports, save or modify report templates for repeat use, and print or download the following reports:

✓ Device configurations

✓ Contracts and warranties

✓ Service events

✓ Support cases

✓ Firmware

Securing your IT dataHP Insight Online collects only system level data, and all data is sent over encrypted lines. HP maintains secure databases, and protects access to your Insight Online account using stan-dard username and password credentials.

You can share the data you wish to share, but never share your credentials.



Sharing information with Channel PartnersWhen you register your devices with HP’s support automation tools, you simply supply your service delivery information:

✓ The location of the server(s)

✓ Contact names if there is an issue

✓ Who delivers your service (HP or an HP Authorized Channel Partner).

At that time, you also have the ability to indicate your HP sales partner or reseller. Providing your HP Channel Partner infor-mation allows HP to share your IT device information with your partners.

Choosing the Best Remote Support Tool

HP offers two different solutions for transmitting hardware failure and diagnostic information to HP support or to your HP Authorized Partner. Both of these are integrated with HP Insight Online:

✓ HP Insight Online direct connect allows ProLiant Gen8 (and future) servers and HP BladeSystem c-Class enclo-sures to transmit hardware failure and diagnostic infor-mation directly to support professionals for analysis, case generation, and automated parts replacement at a low cost with no host server required.

HP Insight Online direct connect is particularly suitable for small and medium businesses (SMB) and remote sites that need 24X7 remote monitoring and automatic case creation for HP ProLiant Gen8 servers without requiring a host server.

✓ HP Insight Remote Support software uses the central connect method to provide similar remote monitoring, diagnosis, and notification capabilities as HP Insight Online Direct connect. It uses an on-premise hosting device to collect data and deliver it to HP. Insight Remote


Chapter 5: Monitoring and Supporting Your Servers 41Support 7.x offers some specific capabilities that Insight Online direct connect doesn’t yet support and may be more suitable for some IT environments. These features include the following:

•Monitoring of pre-Gen8 HP ProLiant servers.

•Monitoring of HP Storage and HP Networking products.

•Monitoring of large IT environments. Insight Remote Support 7.x monitors environments with up to 2,500 IT devices. Additional hosting servers can be deployed to monitor larger environments.

You can also use Insight Remote Support software to manage one IT environment while using Insight Online direct connect to manage another. You can then view consolidated informa-tion from both environments through the HP Insight Online portal.

The final countdownTake a look at some of the HP Insight Online benefits:

✓ Spend less time tracking contract and warranty status because HP makes it easy! Access HP Insight Online anywhere and anytime and easily share IT operations and support information with colleagues and HP partners.

✓ Make fewer service calls . Insight Online and HP remote sup-port tools monitor your hardware

around the clock, open support cases for you, and deliver parts or top-notch service personnel to your door!

✓ Fix problems faster and with a great first-time fix rate . Automated support and improved management of IT infrastructure mean you have less unplanned downtime and fewer unplanned downtime incidents overall.




Chapter 6

Ten Benefits of HP Ser ver Management

In This Chapter▶ Realizing the benefits of faster setup and provisioning

▶ Enjoying more detailed and continuous information about your servers

▶ Accessing all necessary resources in a single location

T his book already includes a lot of information about the ben-efits of HP server management, but it never hurts to have a

quick summary to take back and share with others (especially those holding the keys to your company’s finances). This chapter acts as a refresher, a checklist, or a quick elevator speech.

✓ Extremely fast setup and provisioning of servers: The best servers don’t help if you can’t get them up and run-ning quickly and efficiently. HP server management short-ens the amount of time you must spend on initial setup tasks and gets your system online quickly so that they can start doing productive work.

✓ Continuous monitoring: Ensure your servers stay online using the monitoring capabilities in HP server manage-ment offerings. You’ll get a complete view of your system health, and you can make the adjustments necessary to optimize power efficiency. You can maximize server uptime by updating your servers in online mode and only once per year.


HP Server Management For Dummies 44 ✓ Updates that minimize downtime: All servers require

periodic maintenance just like your car requires mainte-nance: oil changes, filter changes, and tire rotations. Of course, the maintenance your servers require is different in nature, but HP Smart Update helps you make sure that your server is down for the shortest possible time for those updates.

✓ Remote, out-of-band access to systems: Your data centers may not be easily accessible, and you probably don’t have time to drop everything and travel to every single location when problems arise. HP server management gives you access from wherever you need to be, even if the server isn’t running an OS at the time.

✓ Agentless management: HP server management takes agents out of the equation. This configuration helps save you worries about overhead, your time, and your secu-rity situation.

✓ Cloud-based support and warranty tracking: Whenever you need to evaluate your warranty and support informa-tion, HP server management offers a cloud-based solution that gets you the information you need. Get the informa-tion you want anytime, anywhere.

✓ Power capping: Servers consume power, and power costs money. HP server management lets you significantly reduce energy costs without sacrificing server performance.

✓ Automated hardware replacements: Spare parts don’t magically appear out of thin air. They do appear onsite as quickly as possible when you use HP server manage-ment to automate your hardware replacement process, though.

✓ Single management platform: HP server management doesn’t just help manage servers. You can use these tools to monitor and support your storage and network-ing resources as well.

✓ Deep integration with leading partner software: If you already use VMware vCenter, Microsoft System Center, or other leading partner software, HP server manage-ment offers (or will offer) deep integration with these tools. Everybody can play nice together.



Open the book and find:

•An overview of the server management lifecycle

•The benefits of HP server management software and hardware

•Best practices on maintaining your servers

•Some helpful online resources

Go to Dummies.com® for videos, step-by-step examples,

how-to articles, or to shop!

Managing a server might sound easy enough, but imagine trying to manage dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of servers in one location or in a distributed environment. Well, you can put away the travel apps and cancel those plane tickets — this book shows how you can use HP server management to support your servers no matter where you are or what happens.

•Manageyourservers—useHPservermanagementtokeepyourserversrunningoptimally

•Discoverpotentialissues—makeyourservers“phonehome”whentheyexperienceproblems

•Restassuredyou’recovered—makesureanyreplacementpartsyouneedarriveon-timeandintherightlocations,evenbeforeyouknowyouneedthem

Reduce costs and time associated with server management!

ISBN: 978-1-118-91276-8Client Tracking Number: 4AA5-2647ENWNot for resale

John SchmitzDiana ZavalaWendy SheffieldBob NollerMaryJane Vazquez

•About customer challenges with day-to-day server management

• How HP server management can save you time and money

• About the entire HP server management product family

Learn:

HPServerManagement

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