temperature/power consumption readings

[fongrx7]

guys, I am a newbie to these HP servers system montoring. if I have racks of servers, and would like to know remotely how they are running in terms of temperature and power consumption, if any one is running hot, or drawing too much AMPs, we would like to be notified, and take some action remotely. Can all these be done, and automated via scripts?

I have done some search in the forum, and do know that there are varies sensors internally, and the temp readings of each sensor will not reflect the true temp of the server. the best practice is to measure it via some environmental monitoring, such as airflow.

the model is proliant DL 185. I guess that I can get the power reading of the power tower of that rack, instead of getting the readings from each server.

can someone help with the following questions:
1)Can someone get the spec of that model for the temperatures, and power consumption?
2)any default HP util tools can retrieve those readings via some simple commands?
3)if not, then what is the best solution? Proliant Support Pack? iLO 100i pack? or Insight Power Manager?
4)is there reading for each device for temp and power?
5)any sys logs for warnings by default? or the system need to have agents run in order to generate reports?

thanks

[Jeeshan]

install HP SMH (System Management Homepage). You will get the answers of your questions.

[fongrx7]

thanks for the reply. after did some research on openVMS, my questions are:

1)do HP openVMS support HP proliant DL185 servers?
2)it runs on Apache server, which may not be installed on all our server.
3)does it still require any other HP Insight Manager software?
4)having a GUI on each server is nice, but monitoring all GUIs can be real pain. can I configure it so all readings/alerts will be forwarded to a central server for easier monitoring?

after all my search, it seems there are few possible solutions here:
1)PSP?
2)iLO 100 advance pack?
3)Insight Power Manager and other Insight manager softwares?
4)SMH?

which is the best for my goal here? in terms of effort, and cost. if any existing user can contribute some feedback, that will be really helpful.

thanks

[Matti_Kurkela]

Answers to your questions:
1.) OpenVMS on a Proliant DL185, which has a x86 processor? No way. You'll need something with an Alpha or Itanium CPU.

2.) SMH brings its own Apache server with it. It is pre-configured to use only the normal SMH ports (2301 and 2381) and to consume only a minimal amount of system resources.

3.) Just the health monitoring drivers for basic functionality. Depending on your choice of Operating System, there may be additional software modules that become accessible through SMH when installed.

4.) Yes.

Comments to your solutions:
1.) PSP is free to download. It's OS-dependent: if your operating system crashes, PSP cannot report anything.

2.) This is a hardware solution, so it's independent of the OS. It can alert you even if the OS has already crashed.

3.) These help to collect and summarize the information from various servers. Useful in large environments.

4.) Free to download; I understand it comes with the PSP.

MK

[fongrx7]

great information. thanks alot