Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager

[cjb_1]

I'm looking for some opinions on this product as it's something we may be interested in using - i.e. we've bought the licenses. Having spent some time playing around it seems to bring very little to our party (~20 enclosures) . The main problem is that we dont really want to group more than 2 enclosures together in a domain group. Our server specifications vary greatly between enclosures and we have a mix of proliant and integrity blades. Also our SIM environment is a SPOF so we are adding risk. Finally, i've got this issue: https://forums13.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1332308 I've been looking around but there's not much on the forums. Is anyone using it successfully?

[cjb_1]

Seems it's won an award so somebody must be using this?

[chuckk281]

Would you like someone to have an indepth discussion? I couldhave the product team give you a call. Would be much better than a forum chat. Would you like some reference customers?

[bswrchrd]

My company has have now standardized on VCEM for some of our enclosures (about 40). It is a great tool if you are going to a standardized configuration but outside of that it's kinda pointless. Actually pointless is much too harsh, if you would like to be able to migrate server profiles automatically via HP SIM then VCEM is for you. With regards to your issue, VCEM doesn't really like having single VCM domains pulled out and replaced without deleting and rebuilding the VCM from scratch (note I said VCM = VC Manager and not VCEM = VC Ent. Mgr). When you remove that VCM domain using "remove external-manager" your are only removing the info from the VCM, not VCEM itself. There *may* be a way around it but it is dirty, rip the info out of the database itself, that may work but it's definitely not supported. If I can get some time today or tomorrow I'll see if I can test this. HTH

[cjb_1]

Thanks for the responses. I agree, if all the enclosures were full of the same blades it would be handy. We did want to utilise the profile failover feature between a pool of 870's and i have tested this and it works as it says it should. The problems that have been created from the testing has generated a feeling that the risk of adding this facility is too great to warrant using it rather than following fairly simple manual procedures to reach the same ends. I've raised a call on the orphaned vcd issue anyway and will post the outcome. If we get a favourable response I can see us giving it another go.

[Christos Simos]

Hi all, we have a CU with 4 enclosures with the same hardware configuration as far as the Blade Servers but the roles and the networks are unique. I am searching for a minimum number of Enclosures and VCdomains suggested so i can prepare myself for questions from the CU about the usage of this tool. THX.