HP SIM v7.0 Questions

[Daniel Penoff]

I am performing a clean install of HP SIM v7.0 on the VM that we were running an older version (6.3).  I have encountered a number of issues as I attempt to configure HP SIM, and have found little or nothing in the way of documentation on these issues:

1.) The documentation refers to an "Insight managed system setup wizard", however, there is no such item in the "Configure" menu as described.  The HP SIM documentation states that it is a component that is installed with HP SIM by default.

2.) What account, or what means of authentication, is used by the VCA to access the repository?  Is this done using the same certificate or account used by the management agent to authenticate to HP SIM?  How can I change this if I want?

3.) As we deploy more and more virtual machines using VMware, I am not clear on how these systems are managed or monitored by HP SIM.  Is there a means for it to communicate with VMs or are the same agents, such as the management home page and VCA required to be installed on VMs as is done with physical machines?

Thanks in advance for any assistance.  This is very frustrating, to say the least.

[jim goodman]

Well you are talking about the core product SIM7 stand-alone or what we call foundation management, but referring to documentation for the extended feature sets require licenses that build on that SIM foundation and that is called Insight Control.

1) MSSW is a key component for Insight Control to help streamline the licensing and configuration process.

2) Versioning leverages Windows Authentication just like the SMH since it is the parent of the VCRM and VCA or as you noted you have the certificate option. There is some confusion surrounding the certificate process I am working on internally with HP and will post back an update and blog post once I obtain the answers or unless someone comes up with the answers first.

3) SIM will only provide live status up/down state of virtual machines. Windows running on a VM will give you some details about the vm via WMI but outside of windows vm's will be primarily unknown. If you have Insight Control licenses you can leverage Insight Virtual Machine Management will will give you extended monitoring, management and performace details by leveraging Vmware API's to give a consistent discovery, event notification, reporting among other tools along with our own features that give a broader look at host to guest relationships and performance.

I hope that helps sort it out for you.