System Insight Manager 7.2 and Remote Support Standard 7.0.8

[Alice Seeley]

I have a customer that has used SIM with insight remote advanced in the past and now wants to move to SIM 7.2 and use Remote Support 7.0.8. Is anyone using this combination and if so what are the advantages of this? Does RS 7.0.8 sync with System Insight Manager like insight remote advanced?

[Matthias_F]

The integration model with HP SIM changed from IRS 5.x to IRS 7.x.

In IRS 7.x we have a lightweight integration with HP SIM. The advantage of this is that IRS 7.x does not require HP SIM anymore so setting it up is faster and easier for customers that do not have HP SIM. The downside is that there is less data exchanged between HP SIM and IRS 7.x than there was in IRS 5.x.

With IRS 7.x the integration with SIM works like this:

• HP SIM tells IRS about newly added devices and about removed devices. It will provide the IP address and hostname of the device to IRS.
• HP SIM tells IRS about changed credentials. It will provide the changed credential and the IP address and hostname of the device to which the credential belongs
• IRS will use the data it gets from HP SIM to newly discover, identify and entitle the device. Note: device information entered in HP SIM (e.g. contract information) is not transferred and needs to be put into IRS manually
• IRS will notify SIM of ServiceEvents that are sent to HP. These ServiceEvents will show in HP SIM as before.

[Chris_N]

Hi Alice,

Determining what version of Insight Remote Support to use, IRSA v5.80 or InsightRS v7.0.8, depends on a few things.

1.      The first item to consider is the level of support in your environment and if you will need the Mission Critical components of Insight RS Advanced v5. There are certain MC components that are not yet supported with version 7. To name a few examples:  HPUX advanced collections, Remote Support Network Component, integration with SAP Solution Manager and integration HP Operations Manager.  While HP recommends that Proactive Care customers utilize HP Insight RS v7 with HP Insight Online, it is possible to utilize Insight RS Advanced v5 (without HP Insight Online) if required to meet your business needs.

2.      The second item to consider is the hardware devices that you will be monitoring.  Some devices, such as XP/P9000, Superdome 1, and NonStops, are not yet supported with version 7.x of InsightRS.  It is important to review which devices are supported with version 5 and version 7 when making a decision.

3.      The third item to consider is the number of hardware devices that you will be monitoring.  Insight RS v7 will support up to 2500 devices with the 7.0.8 release; however, this capacity will be increasing with future releases of version 7.

Additionally, version 5 IRSA does not support Windows Server 2012.  This is supported with InsightRS 7.0.8.

Personally, for a MC customer, if there are devices or services only IRSA can handle, then I would stick with IRSA until its replacement in v7 is rolled out.

Alternately, some customers choose to have both versions in their environment so they can get familiar with the new version and slowly migrate devices over as they become supported.