OS & HPE Management Software Installation on DL380 Gen9

[Adrivium]

Hello, all!

I'll start by stating that I am our organization's "accidental SysAdmin" and do not have a lot of experience setting up and configuring HP servers - or others for that matter.  Though I have some experience, I'm far from an expert in this field and have only done as much server setup/config as necessary to keep us up and running.

We just purchased a couple of DL380 Gen9 servers.  My initial thought is to set them up the same way as the Gen7 servers we're currently running which is: Hyper-V Server as the host OS and two Hyper-V guest VMs each running Windows Server (in this case the Gen9 servers will be running Hyper-V Server 2019 and Windows Server 2019).  However, I also want to be able to install and use the HPE Management software (SPP, SMH, ACU, etc.).  Admittedly, I don't know what functionality is included in the software, but want to learn by jumping in and trying it out.  The functionality we know we want for sure is to be alerted via email when one of the drives goes bad.  We also have an iLO4 Advanced license.

So, my question is: Can I install the HPE management software on, and use it from, a guest Windows VM (since the host OS has no GUI)?  Or, am I going to have to install a full Windows Server host OS on the box in order to use the HPE software?  Also, will iLO provide the "email me when a drive fails" functionality?  Or, is other software necessary?

Please let me know if there is additional information I can provide that would be helpful.

Thanks for your help!

-Adam

[Bunsol · Accepted solution]

Since the functionality you are looking for is to be alerted via emails if there is any hardware issue on the server. In this case you can use the ILO 4 SNMP alerts which will send an email to you in case ILO receives any alert. If you are looking to receive the alerts from the OS level then the management agents have to be installed on the host operating system. This will not work on a Virtual machine OS. If you install the agentless management services then the OS level agentless management and active health events are provided to the ILO.

You can use the SPP to update firmware, create custom SPP, boot the server from it to make configuration changes. You can anyways make the configuration changes via BIOS or the Intelligent Provisioning. 

You can use the Smart storage administrator to manage the drives, array and logical drives. This is also available inside the Intelligent provisioning and can be installed on the host operating system

System Management Homepage is another tool that can be installed on the host Windows which will give you active information on the overall health status of the hardware components. It will also show you if there is any degraded or failed components.

[Adrivium]

Do you know if I can install the tools on -- and run the HPE tools from -- the "core" version of Windows (i.e., the one without desktop experience)?

Thanks, again!

[Bunsol]

You can use the SSA CLI to manage the array:-

https://support.hpe.com/hpsc/swd/public/detail?swItemId=MTX_06844ab2ee244d5294cb7e5fbd#tab3

SSA CLI usser guide(Page 57):-

https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docId=c03909334

SMH is used for hosts with GUI. However you can install the Agentless management sservices.

https://support.hpe.com/hpsc/swd/public/detail?swItemId=MTX_30d0d779e96e414d9d3c6c0440&swEnvOid=4249#tab3