SyStemS management

DELL POWER SOLUTIONS | December 2009102 Reprinted from Dell Power Solutions, December 2009. Copyright © 2009 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.

To help effectively manage their environ-

ments, IT administrators often use multiple

independent software tools to address

challenges related to systems management and

other tasks. Although this approach can have its

advantages, the adoption of multiple independent

tools can also add complexity, with each tool

requiring its own incremental hardware, licensing,

and training.

The Dell Management Console Powered by

Altiris from Symantec is designed to simplify IT

administration by consolidating disparate aspects

of systems management, security, and data pro-

tection into a single powerful, flexible tool.

Organizations can take advantage of the compli-

mentary Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery

Management Solution (BESR-MS) plug-in to inte-

grate their BESR installations into this tool.

Together, the Dell Management Console and the

BESR-MS plug-in help centralize and simplify man-

agement of BESR-protected servers and clients—

offering a range of advantages for administrators,

including centralized BESR deployment through

an intuitive interface, centralized backup policy

creation and management, centralized backup

status reporting, and alert-triggered backup and

restore processes in response to administrator-

defined criteria.

Flexible, extenSible platFormThe Dell Management Console is a complimentary

hardware management application included with Dell

PowerEdge™ servers. It is designed to provide a single

view into the IT infrastructure and, through integration

with Dell OpenManage™ agents, enables administrators

to monitor and report on Dell servers, storage, switches,

clients, and printers at a high level of detail. The basic

console software itself incorporates features for hard-

ware discovery, inventory, and health monitoring as

well as BIOS upgrades, reporting, and alerting.

The BESR-MS plug-in, available as a complimentary

download for use with purchased copies of BESR,

enables administrators to use the Dell Management

Console to discover and centrally manage BESR

installations in their environments, including viewing

backup status, remotely scheduling backup jobs, and

remotely deploying new BESR licenses (see Figure 1).

BESR is designed to act as a one-to-one agent protecting

individual Microsoft® Windows® OS–based servers or

clients. It takes multiple snapshots of the entire

OS—including system settings and application configu-

rations—to enable rapid, comprehensive system restore

functionality to multiple points in time. In addition

to supporting bare-metal recoveries on the original

hardware, BESR can be configured to restore a system

image to dissimilar hardware. In virtualized environ-

ments, it can also be scheduled to automatically

The Dell™ Management Console Powered by Altiris™ from Symantec™ is designed to consolidate disparate management tasks into a single powerful, flexible interface. Using a complimentary plug-in, administrators can integrate Symantec Backup Exec™ System Recovery installations with this console to help centralize and simplify control over servers and clients in their environments.

By Troy Lehman

IntegratIng Symantec Backup exec SyStem recovery Into the Dell management conSole

103DELL.COM/PowerSolutionsReprinted from Dell Power Solutions, December 2009. Copyright © 2009 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.

convert backup images to virtual images

(such as .vmdk or .vhd files), providing a

valuable tool for physical-to-virtual migra-

tion projects.

Because the Dell Management Console

is based on the modular Symantec

Management Platform architecture, admin-

istrators can also take advantage of other

plug-ins to help them deploy and manage

a variety of Symantec applications, includ-

ing the Altiris Server Management Suite™,

Altiris Client Management Suite™, and

Symantec Endpoint Protection solutions.

The consistent interface, common data

model, and single configuration manage-

ment database (CMDB) used by these

plug-ins can help administrators effi-

ciently deploy, manage, and license their

environments; automate key manage-

ment tasks; and gain a broad view of the

health of their IT environments through

a single console.

Centralized beSr deploymentAs with other solutions that integrate with

the Symantec Management Platform

framework, administrators can install the

BESR-MS plug-in using the Symantec

Installation Manager (SIM). On launch, the

SIM screen lists the Dell Management

Console plug-ins that are currently installed

and those that are available for installation,

enabling administrators to download and

install the BESR-MS plug-in through a

simple point-and-click process.

The initial BESR-MS installation auto-

matically creates a software package

comprising the installation scripts and files

required for automated remote deployments

of the BESR application itself. After installing

the plug-in, administrators can immediately

use this package and associated options in

the Dell Management Console to roll out the

BESR application to managed systems.

Comprehensive automation helps dramati-

cally streamline the deployment process,

avoiding the need for administrators to

manually create packages, tasks, or scripts.

Centralized baCkup poliCy Creation and managementBESR runs locally on each server or client,

and by default each application instance is

managed independently. The BESR-MS

plug-in, however, enables administrators to

centralize this management in the Dell

Management Console. From there, they can

create customized backup policies that can

then be applied globally or to administrator-

defined subsets of managed servers or

clients. The console also supports a wide

range of flexible scheduling options to help

ensure that data protection activities meet

organizational requirements.

Centralized baCkup StatuS reportingIntegrated dashboards for real-time

operational monitoring are fundamental

Figure 1. Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery Management Solution in the Dell Management Console

Figure 2. Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery Management Solution backup status

SyStemS management

DELL POWER SOLUTIONS | December 2009104 Reprinted from Dell Power Solutions, December 2009. Copyright © 2009 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.

QuiCk linkS

Dell and Symantec:DELL.COM/Symantecwww.symantec.com/dell

Dell systems management:DELL.COM/OpenManage

to a mature backup and recovery solu-

tion. In addition to the graphically pre-

sented general overview on the main

portal page, the BESR-MS plug-in offers

a variety of granular reports to help

administrators easily monitor managed

systems, including the following:

Backup status:■■ Provides a consolidated

view of the backup status of all man-

aged systems, denoting each backup

as At Risk, Needs Attention, or Backed

Up (see Figure 2)

Recovery point objective:■■ Lists the

most recent recovery point available

for all managed systems, allowing

administrators to gauge compliance

with organizational recovery point

objectives

Volume capacity:■■ Lists the disk utilization

of a production system as well as capac-

ity levels of target storage areas to enable

planning for additional storage capacity

requirements

alert-triggered baCkup and reStore proCeSSeSAdministrators can configure managed

systems to generate status messages

using standard protocols such as Simple

Network Management Protocol (SNMP).

When received, status messages from dif-

ferent protocols are converted from their

native format into a common Dell

Management Console format called an

alert. Each alert has a status of New,

Acknowledged, or Resolved, and can indi-

cate one of many severity levels ranging

from Normal to Critical.

Administrators can also configure the

Dell Management Console to execute a

BESR backup or execute multiple inde-

pendent tasks—such as backing up, restor-

ing, copying to an off-site location, or

converting to a .vmdk file—in response to

an alert. For example, on receiving a Dell

predictive disk failure alert, the event con-

sole can trigger a job containing multiple

tasks that immediately back up that server

and then convert the backup image to a

virtual machine. Administrators can then

easily launch this virtual machine while the

original server is taken offline for repair.

Importantly, the process of linking

backup tasks with incoming alerts is

designed for simplicity and ease of use,

without requiring advanced configuration

or scripting (see Figure 3). Administrators

can quickly and easily configure alert-

triggered backup and restore processes

because the underlying tasks required to

configure those processes are automati-

cally created when the BESR-MS plug-in

is first installed.

ComprehenSive SyStemS managementThe Dell Management Console is designed

to provide a comprehensive life cycle man-

agement platform that can enhance quality

of service while helping reduce the costs

of ownership and management associated

with IT resources. By incorporating the

complimentary BESR-MS plug-in into this

console, organizations using BESR to help

protect their Microsoft Windows–based

systems can take advantage of the man-

agement capabilities of the console to

schedule and automate BESR deployments

across the enterprise, trigger backup and

restore processes based on alerts, and

more. And because the Dell Management

Console is based on the Symantec

Management Platform, it can also provide

seamless integration with Symantec solu-

tions for systems management, security,

and data protection as well as many other

third-party plug-ins—offering a powerful,

flexible way for administrators to manage

a wide range of software across their IT

environments.

Troy Lehman is a senior technical strate-

gist at Symantec currently focused on

backup, recovery, and archiving strategy

and enablement within Dell.

Figure 3. Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery Management Solution alert rule settings