Is ensuring reliable monitoring one of the more daunting infrastructure support tasks? What about the consistent provisioning of server hardware? Do you find that when it’s running no one cares about it, but when there’s a problem it’s the number one concern? There are many ways to answer these questions, but we’ve found a way to satisfy them all with a single product.
Our solution
HPE OneView is a simple way to monitor and manage your infrastructure. Licences only need to be purchased when HPE server hardware is being managed, which makes HPE OneView a free solution for HPE server hardware monitoring.
If you have a HPE server estate, implementing HPE OneView should be the next infrastructure project you undertake. We understand that any change can be daunting, so I’ve simplified the appliance deployment and server import process for you here.
Start with research
Any deployment requires research and input from different support teams before implementation, and our HPE OneView user guides are a great starting point. They can be found in the HPE technical library. When you are ready to deploy the HPE OneView virtual appliance, it can be downloaded from the Enterprise Library portal. Self-help forums are also available.
Easy deployment
As the product comes as a single appliance you only need to deploy one thing to get started. It can be deployed in VMware, Hyper-V and KVM environments and requires 8vCPUs, 24GB of RAM and 275GB of storage. You will need an IP address and a hostname, and these details should have been registered in your internal DNS system. At initial power on you will set the local administrator password and define the network details for appliance connectivity.
Connectivity
Once the appliance has an IP address configured you need make sure that you can connect to it. The image below is from the user guide and shows the firewall connectivity between the user, HPE OneView and several services.
HPE OneView doesn’t route network traffic so connectivity needs to be direct, and at a minimum you will need your firewalls to allow traffic from the web browser to both the HPE OneView appliance and the iLO subnet. The appliance will also need to connect to the iLO subnet, in order to monitor or manage the iLOs, and to NTP servers to ensure a consistent time sync across the environment. When you add servers into HPE OneView they will be configured to use the HPE OneView appliance as a time source and an SNMP trap destination, so check that the connectivity between HPE OneView and the iLO subnet matches the image above. The appliance configurations can be backed up to an external server and user access can be configured for LDAP or Active Directory. Changes to the appliance configuration are performed in the ‘Settings’ section of the HPE OneView web interface.
Monitored vs Managed
Once connectivity has been ticked off, you can start adding servers into HPE OneView. The process is straightforward but remember that servers in HPE OneView can either be managed or monitored. The management option enables the software defined features and allows you to create a server profile, where you can define things like BIOS settings, storage configuration and firmware baselines and then the server has this configuration applied to it. This removes the need to go poking around during server deployment and means multiple servers can have the same settings applied without manual intervention. A server doesn’t have to be new to have a profile applied, they can be applied to deployed hardware to ensure a consistency of settings across the environment.
If you decide on the monitoring option, you’ll benefit from some good, free features for efficiently monitoring your servers.
Get the right licensing
Any servers that are managed need a licence, and purchased licences need to be added via the HPE OneView web interface ‘Settings’ menu. There are two types of licence to choose from for a managed server:
The HPE OneView Advanced licence includes an iLO Advanced licence and is the best option if the server iLO isn’t licensed. The HPE OneView Advanced without iLO licence, as the name suggests, is just the HPE OneView licence that enables the management features and is the best option if the server already has an iLO Advanced licence. However, check that the server or Blade enclosure didn’t come with a factory integrated OneView Advanced licence, as this could have been added at the time of purchase. Remember, if you only want to monitor your hardware you don’t need HPE OneView licences!
Importing server hardware
To import server hardware, expand the ‘Servers’ menu in the HPE OneView web interface and select ‘Server Hardware’. Clicking the big HPE green ‘Add server hardware’ button at the top of the page will start the process.
Server hardware is added using the iLO IP address or iLO hostname (provided it can be resolved) of the server along with a login credential. The credential needs to provide administrator access to the iLO and can be a local or directory services user. You don’t need to power servers off and can add single, multiples or an IP range, so start by entering the iLO details with any ranges specified in full as start IP-end IP. If you are adding a range, then the credential needs to work on all the servers, as you can only enter one, but if the iLOs have different credentials this process can be scripted. Next select whether you want the server to be added as a managed or monitored device. After selecting one of these the credential box will appear, and if you selected managed then an additional couple of options will appear where you can select which licence type to use. For now, let’s not worry about scopes, as you can read up on these as you use HPE OneView more. When you’re ready, click ‘Add’ to start the process.
If connectivity is in place and the credentials work, you should start to see servers being added to HPE OneView. There is an activity bar for each device so any issues during the process should be highlighted, but by the end of the process you will have servers that can be managed or monitored from a single console.
With some straightforward first steps to deployment, HPE OneView provides a clear and uncomplicated way to monitor and manage your infrastructure and can help transform your IT operations.
Get in touch
If you have any questions about HPE OneView, need more information before you get started, or you’d like to pick our brains to discuss anything with our specialists, please get in touch today.
If you would like to find out more, our webinar is available on demand, where we displayed OneView's capabilities and how it can benefit your organisation.
Lee Archer
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
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Lee is a presales consultant at HPE, with an interest and expertise in infrastructure management and optimisation.
