HP SIM 6.2 VCR and the new SPP

[Grace_MEM]

My environment is small but HP SIM has been a great tool for us.  I am currently running the HP SIM 6.2 and do not plan to upgrade yet since my servers are rather old: a few DL380s G4 & G5 (even one G1 with a legacy app), ML370 G5, ML150 G6.  VCRM workde fine until recently when it stopped downloading anything after PSP 8.70.  I updated one of the servers with the new SPP from a DVD and now of course the CMS cannot compare versions since the repository has older files.

Sorry for being dumb but what do I need to do to make my HP SIM work with the new SPPs?

Any explanations or pointer to online resources that can enlighten the undersigned are greatly appreciated.

Grace

[jim goodman]

Hi Grace - not dumb at all, you have notice a peculiararity with the SPP hosting which is currently being addressed. The latest SPP is hosted in the Software Depot and not in the FTP location where the VCRM downloads come from.

You can copy the contents of the SPP (swpackages folder) into the repository manually, keep in mind you'll only get what would be supported for your current SIM/VCRM versions and note only G5 and later are supported. Outside of the Servers online updates you'll have to still use HPSUM to update the infrastructure or leverage the latest features.

[Grace_MEM]

Thank you, Jim.  I will try the manual upload of the SPP into VCRM since I can see quite a few updates available for my Windows 2003 servers on Proliant when I check available software and drivers pages.  In the meantime, I found more information about how the new approach is supposed to work in this blog ;-) :

http://worldofinsight.wordpress.com/2012/04/24/hpsim7-setting-baselines-and-software-status/ 

and also some online discussions like this one:

 http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/ITRC-HP-Systems-Insight-Manager/SIM-7-0-Software-Status-Polling-doesn-t-update-status/td-p/5603801. 

I am also confused about support for Windows Server 2003 - I can still see new drivers and even a firmware DVD 10 for the 64-bit version on Proliant ML370 G5.  And the new SPP installed fine on DL150 G6 with Win Server 2003.  So what is really happening to the Win Server 2003 support?

Thank you very much for helping us in the trenches so much.

Grace

[jim goodman]

Hi Grace - I'd be careful of that blog, that guy is a consultant and what he doesn't know I hear he makes up as he goes :)

Windows 2003 went EOL for Microsoft July 13, 2010 so little by little we have wound down support for 2003 to the point of no longer supporting it in the context of SPPs. What 2003 you might see is more than likely a support pack that is 2003/2008 combined driver. I don't have the final word on that and perhaps there are exceptions but I don't know of any at this point.

I did see an email today that the auto download of the SPP 2012.02.0 into the VCRM should be rectified soon :)