HPSIM Features v7.2

[jamkhan]

Hi,

Please let me know how to monitor the fan failures and for this functionality what and all need to be installed and should it be on a physical server along with the agents or can we do it agent-less.

Since this is a hardware monitoring tool,let me know only if we have the product installed in a physical server-HP we would be able to get a deep dive info of the tool else the same can be achieved on doing in a VM as well.If so,How the hardware level monitoring can be achieved as that as of physical servers in the form of Blades,or fans or Management consoles...etc...

Hardware or the Physical server architecture required to achieve the complete diagnostic level monitoring from HPSIM side

Monitoring Power consumption data,configuring metering devices such as PDU's & Monitoring of Power and Cooling equipments.

[Server-Support]

Hi JamKhan,

My understanding is that by default straight out of the box the HP SIM system can detect and report the system status only (online / offline) but for more detailed component failure reporting, I think we need to load the MIB file into the HP SIM server (CMS).

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

[LGentile]

You will need to spend some time with the deployment guides for SIM, most of your questions may be answered there.

The short answer is:  If the hardware is HP, you can see all events/hardware status within SIM.  SIM will also discover associations with iLOs, blades, enclosures, OA's, etc.. and SuperDome components.  When you have enclosures, you also get a view of them as you see them in the OAs, so it is very nice.  Think of SIM as your "front door" or "portal" to other tools.  SIM will gather data from HP agents that run on HP servers (for Windows, there are agents, for ESXi there are CIM/WBEM providers, agents for Linux) and in Gen8 servers, you can include servers in agentless mode (although there is still a small component that needs to be on the servers for this to work).  Using SIM, you can see what is going on, and when you click on a link for a fan or RAID controller, you will be directed to another tool to get more in-depth status depending on the platform.  For example, if you are looking at a Windows server and you click on the RAID controller, you will be directed to the Systems Management Homepage (SMH) of that server and in effect, will be "out" out SIM in a new browser window.  If ESXi or something that does not have the SMH installed, this will differ.  If you click on a blade enclosure, you will see an option to open up a virtual connect module or OA, and again be connected to those devices directly.

For your other questions (power management, etc) you again need to read SIM documentation.  For HP hardware you can use power management options (see consumption, set power capping, etc), but some of those features require the paid SIM module (Insight Control) and appropriate iLO licenses (iCE, not just iLO Advanced).  

For all other hardware platforms (Dell, UPSs, etc..) you can use SIM to accept events from them via SNMP (once you load the MIBs into SIM) but in most cases, SIM will only be able to interpret SNMP traps and not always see hardware status within the SIM dashboard.  For example, Dell servers will perfectly fine for events, but you cannot see hardware status at all.  For IBM servers, you can see HW status and events... it simply varies per platform.

There are a few documents that show how to add non-HP devices into SIM.  If you plan to only use SIM in your environment for HW monitoring, it is a good starting point.  You have a lot of reading to do :)

Good luck!

[Server-Support]

Many thanks for the explanation LGentile, I appreciate your assistance here.

Cheers !

[jamkhan]

Hi,

Thanks a lot for the explanation,

Can u please answer this question alone,If we are gonna have the HPSIM setup installed in a VM,How far can we achieve the hardware level monitoring from the other servers,Do we need to have an Agent installed on  that Physical server if it needs to shows us the details of fan failures etc....

Can u please send me the link to study on achieving the same,

am asking this for testing purpose within a very small environment.

[J_N_Rhodes]

jamkhan -

Yes, HP SIM can be installed on VM as well,
but it limits the no. of devices that can be monitored

Yes, you need to install agents for in-depth monitoring

If my post was useful, please clik on "White Star" to award me kudos :)

[LGentile]

To clarify:

HP SIM can certainly run on a VM - the database and RAM on the VM is going to be your biggest concern. If you are monitoring a LOT of devices (1,000+) you'll want to have your DB on a separate machine if possible, and throw a good chunk of RAM (8gb+) on the SIM CMS server. There may be a sizing guide for SIM (SiteScope has an excel sheet to use for sizing capacity).

Anyhow - for hardware. To get hardware status/events from an HP system (not the SIM server itself), yes you need the Management Agents at a minimum since the MIB sets are included there, along with drivers/etc that get information from the iLO and other HP components.

You mentioned a small environment, so a VM is completely fine.. just make sure the systems you are monitoring have the agents installed, and preferably the System Management Homepage as well.

[Server-Support]

Many thanks for the clarification LGentile.

[jamkhan]

Hi,
I have one more concern,please reply at the earliest,suppose if a real physical server is not available and only VM is there for installation of the complete setup,
Again the VM would be hosted on a physical server,suppose if we have installed the agents or again the CMS on that VM,will it have the capability of showing us the hardware setup of that physical server where this VM is hosted,please reply.
Kindly let me know what are all the features that i can explore if i just put the setup on a VM.