Anyone using HP Insight Online?

[lowen]

Interested to hear from users of HP Insight Online - web-based view of your monitored devices, available with Insight RS V7  - all feedback welcome!

[Duckfather]

I'm just starting to use this.

While it's a great start, it needs a few rough edges knocking off :-

When searching / looking at warrenties / SAID etc, the warrenties are always shown as related to a device serial number and not the discovered IP address or name of that device. This makes things very hard to track back in the real datacentre. Crertainly if a large amount of servers are due to run out of warrenty soon!

Reporting seems to return either bizarre results or not what was expected (certainly as far as I'm concerned) : for example, a warrenties report will show the same device repeated four times with no warrenty expiration date for some devices, while others are skipped all together (with all devices selected for the report).

If a device suffers a critical service event and the warrenty subsequently expires after a replacement part has been sent to us, but before the service event has been closed by HP, the critical service event stays in the GUI, but it doesn't allow us to navigate to the event to request it's closure as the device is now reported as out of warrenty. I have a single device like this which is annoying the hell out of me :-P

Not necessarily an issue directly with Insight Online : a bit of transparency on how / when Insight Remote Support sends info to Insight Online would be nice (assuming there isn't any documentation already, if there is, I haven't been able to find it yet). This would greatly help when troubleshooting why devices aren't appearing in Insight Online when they seemingly should be.

If a device has multiple IP addresses, it seems hit and miss as to which IP address is used and hence which DNS name is also used, both in Insight Remote Support and in Insight Online. I have devices which seem to report with different IP addresses and names in both products, yet are the same device (these have their preferred IP addresses set in HP SIM, but this setting isn't respected)

And finally, a very small gripe : the adverts at the bottom of the page for Insight Remote Support and Insight Online are just annoying. I've obviously already taken advantage of these as I'm using the product, so i don't need to have adverts asking me to sign up for these services glaring at me (miss-clicking on them is a pet annoyance of mine, hehehe). these should be removed once logged onto Insight Online.

Apart from that, it's good stuff so far :-)

Andy

[lowen]

Hi Andy, thanks so much for the feedback! I'll consult with the team here and get back to you on your points, some of which we may be addressing in the next release .....
Glad to hear that you feel it's a good start!
Lucy

[sdrake48]

I'm testing Insight Remote Support 7.0.5 - not using Insight Online at the moment because I don't want to be notified (want our HP Provider to be notified).   Not sure if you're looking for feedback on IRS 7.0.5, but just in case....

1. Multiple network support - I opened a case on this months ago when I tried to setup a mixed installation (G5, G6, and G8 servers).  I discovered the G8's using ribcl on ILO4, and the G5/G6 using SNMP via the O/S network (different network from ILO) and the management agents.  This didn't work and I was told I could not discover servers on different networks.  Is this still the case?  Is it viewed as a bug to be fixed?

2. I downloaded a newer version of 7.0.5 from the Software Depot last week - but assume that the Version update function of IRS should install this update automatically.  The Version Control page shows I have 7.0.5.70 and there are no updates....yet the version I downloaded is something like 7.0.5.188.  Please explain?

3. Is it at all possible to discover/monitor G5, G6, G7 servers via ILO2/3?  Is this planned?

4. On the IRS Home page in the Message Board I have 2 Major errors: Install Package: HpSimAdapterNonPlugin (7.0.5.155) - note different version number from above.  How do I clear these messages.  I am not using HP Insight Manager.

5. In the Service Event page I have 2 service events cpqHo2GenericTrap (from issuing trapsink from the System Management Home page of my G5 and G6 clients.  How do I clear these?  I see they went from status pending, to submitted, to closed automatically.  How does this happen?  What does this mean?  Who closed them?

6. We have a customer with 10 different locations who wants us to monitor all his HP servers - can this be done from a single IRS Host at one location - without configuring a vpn to each site? What are the pre-reqs/reguirements?

7. I want to test whether my HP Service Provider is notified in the event of failure (he wasn't notified for the service events in number 4 above).  How can I safely generate an error that will be reported?  Right now I am monitoring 2 G8 servers - I tried removing one of the power cords from the ML350p G8 and while I get a yellow error light on the front panel, IRS doesn't seem to notice.  Shouldn't it?  What errors are reported?

Thanks for your assistance,

Steve

[lowen]

Hi Steve, thanks for the feedback - we'll get back to you on all those points.

One thing - you said you are not using Insight Online because you want your Service Provider to be notified.  If you use Insight Online it shouldn't affect whether your Service Provider is notified or not.  You would get your own view in Insight Online and the Service Provider would get theirs.

You also mentioned that the Service Provider wasn't notified of the last 2 service events - sorry to hear that.  I'm wondering if all the set up might not have been done.  In order for the Service Provider to get events routed to them, there are some set up steps that need be taken on the HP side, once the Service Provider has requested this.   The Service Provider enters their Partner Location ID in Insight Remote Support, but they also need to have a queue set up as well.   Your Service Provider can get help for this from their local HP Partner Business Manager.

We will be back with answers to your other points.

-Lucy

[sdrake48]

Thank you Lucy

[MJE]

Hi Steve, on #3 you will need to continue to use the traditional OS agents for discovery of G5, G6 and G7 servers.  With HP ProLiant Gen8 and future servers you can use the embedded remote support within iLO.

Best regards,

MJ

[seamasters]

Hi Steve,

  The traps that you sent are "Test Traps" and they are basically testing that the Insight Remote Support can get the traps, analyze them and send them to HP.  Those types of events are automatically closed at HP because they are not actionable.  So the states that you described are what we expect would happen.  The service event was submitted to HP and it was seen as a generated test event, which was then automatically closed.

    I have not had any experience with generating events that would result in the call being sent on to an HP call handling queue, so I cannot give you any advice on what type of things would result in a call being sent back to you.

[seamasters]

Steve,

   As far as the release numbers of the 7.0.5 kits, it looks like you had one of the controlled release kits.  There were special instructions for replacing those kits and they were not automatically updated to the release kit version.  The latest release version is kit 193.  Probably the easiest way to get up to date is to uninstall the kit that you have, and then install the latest 7.0.5 kit.

    Support for ProLiant G5, G6, and G7 is provided through either SNMP Agents or WMI Providers running on the server itself.  The Embedded Remote Support features of the Gen8 ProLiant and iLO4 were introduced with those products.  The iLO2 and iLO3 do not provide the same level of support, and Insight Remote Support does not use them for providing support.

    As far as supporting multiple remote locations, the solution requires that it have access to the servers so that iLO service events, traps, and/or WMI indications can be delivered to the hosting device, as well as allowing the the hosting device to do data collections.  So I believe the answer to your question is that no, they cannot be supported without a VPN connection today from the same hosting device.  Of course Insight Remote Support could be run at each location, but I don't think that is the experience that you/your customer are looking for. 

[sdrake48]

Thank you.  In other words, the discovery ip address cannot be the ILO ip address for ILO2 and ILO3.  Which brings me back to the problem I reported a few months ago - in a mixed environment (G6, G7, G8) how do I monitor the G8's using agentless management (discovery via the ILO4 ip address) and the G6/G7 simultaneously.  This means I have to monitor servers on different networks (normally mgmt networks are separate and distinct) and it didn't work with IRS.   Is it planned to correct this, or must I monitor the G8's using the mgmt agents (not via ILO4)?