HP SIM and Version Control on managed systems

[carteran]

Greetings,

I'm new to HP SIM. I have V5.3 SP1 installed and working well. However Version Control as applied to components on managed systems appears clunky - I wonder if I'm doing it right.
I have:
- VCA installed on each managed host and VCRM on the CMS host
- scheduled download of updates successful
- VCA on managed host reporting status of software and firmware successfully against the repository on the CMS host.
To update the software and firmware, Deploy | Depoly Drivers... |Install Software and firmware..
I choose a managed system and I'm then presented with a bewildering array of software and firmware options - everything in the VCR is listed. Can I configure this page to only display updates relevant to the model of the managed host which I selected to update.

Thanks in advance

[TechGuru]

Components in VCRM are basically sorted or grouped based on operating system that it is supported on.

Server Model information is not considered in VCA and VCRM as of now.

Browsing to VCA page, will show only applicable components for deployment for that target.

[carteran]

Thanks for that.
With most patching applications the client will pull down from the repository the updates relevant to it and then install them according to whatever policy is set. It appears that with SIM, you need to wade through all this stuff and dig out the relevant patches, select them and then push them to the clients - it appears to be very manual, not to mention time-consuming and error prone (you have to know exactly what hardware is in each managed system). Is there an advantage in installing the PSP on every host and running updates that way - is it smarter in selecting which patches are relevant to the specific hardware and platform.

Any practical advice appreciated.

[Lars Bornich · Accepted solution]

The PSP is "smarter" in the sense, that it will only install components relevant to the hardware installed on the system, however if you use the HP SIM interface to push a PSP to a client system, the entire PSP will be downloaded, and then only the components relevant will be installed.

The only other way I see for you to manage this, is to create custom software baselines for the hardware profiles you have, and then push those to the individual client systems.