Question on HP SIM & ESX node agents & Virtual Center

[INTEGRATIONARCHITECT]

Can someone run down if SIM supports the following clients

1. ESX VM Windows 2003 Sessions 32 bit ?
What does it give you?
Do you use the regular SIM VCA software like a physical server or not?

2. ESX 3.02 Nodes themselves?
What does it report on?
Where is the agent software download?

3. ESX 3.02 Virtual Center over MSSQL
What features does it provide and where is the software download?
Is this a free agent or not?

Thanks in Advance...

[Rob Buxton · Accepted solution]

1. ESX VM Windows 2003 Sessions 32 bit ?
What does it give you?
Do you use the regular SIM VCA software like a physical server or not?

HPSIM can monitor the server, but it doesn't do any of the physical stuff and there's no VCA. Mainly as you don't have the majority of the HP specific drivers.
I use wbem to get the extra details from the Guest servers.
There's an HPSIM Plug-in (it costs) called VMM that enhances the visibility and adds some value.

2. ESX 3.02 Nodes themselves?
What does it report on?
Where is the agent software download?
Same as a Windows physical host, except again there's no VCA. Mainly because you don't add additional drivers etc. to ESX. It would be nice for a firmware only VCA for ESX to be available though. Start at:
http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/server/us/index.html

3. ESX 3.02 Virtual Center over MSSQL
What features does it provide and where is the software download?
Is this a free agent or not?
Not too sure what you're asking here - Virtual Centre is a separately purchased from product from VMware. If you really want the value from an ESX solution you need VC.
Go to the VMware site, you'll find the downloads section.

[INTEGRATIONARCHITECT]

Thanks for your replies on #1 and #2. Please confirm unlike the SIM product that is free there are no free virtualization SIM products for ESX. I found this but did not have time to try it yet. Has anyone tried it and what does it provide?

http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/server/us/download/27342.html Installation: Login as the system administrator (root), download the package to a directory on your hard drive and change to that directory. Unpack the contents of the package by typing: tar -zxvf hpmgmt-7.8.0-vmware3x.tgz This will create two new directories (/hpmgmt/780) under your current directory. Change to the new ./hpmgmt/780 directory and view the README file for installation instructions.


3. ESX 3.02 Virtual Center over MSSQL. What features does it provide and where is the software download? Is this a free agent or not?

Q#3: Clarification: Regarding my original question #3, SIM has some Virtual Center connections including VC credentials and VM patch management. But can it plug into VC and pull alerts and monitoring out like it does for a physical node? I know that ESX VC provides "system monitoring, alerts, and notifications...CPU, memory and heartbeat states to manage and pre-empt problems. Alarm triggers generate automated notifications and alerts. Schedule automatic execution of system management tasks such as sending SNMP traps, sending emails, running management scripts, suspending, powering off, and resetting virtual machines..."

Again, thanks in advance for any further info on this.

[Rob Buxton]

That is the HP Management Agents, it provides the same kind of information as the Windows Management Agents. Hardware failure, Disk space, CPU performance etc. You don't get the VCA as part of that.
Yes, it's free and I find it very useful.

I think the links from HPSIM to VC are more useful if you have bought Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) for the ESX Hosts. It allows you to do things like VMotion from the HPSIM interface. VMM is a plug-in you purchase per ESX Host.

You can configure VC to send SNMP traps directly to HPSIM, you'll need to import and compile the VMware MIB into HPSIM. I've not found that too useful. Too many informational traps.

The Patch management product is a whole different plug-in, again it's cost. I doubt if it covers ESX hosts.