Want to monitor Dell server hardware without installing OpenManage Server Administrator, or maybe you can't install OMSA. This walk-through gives you the steps to get this to work.
This walk-through assumes you already have SCOM running and are familiar with it. If you don't have SCOM 2012 running, check out Kevin Holman's quick start guide:
This is where DCLM should be but this page has not been updated to include 1.1 yet.
. This PDF tells you how to get the licenses needed for Out-of-Band management.
Now for the actual walk-through. And the first rule of SCOM is if you think you have waited long enough for something to happen, double your wait time unless you know how to set the overrides to make things happen quicker.
1. Get your licenses for SCOM Out-of-Band management through your sales rep at Dell if you don't already have them.
2. Get DCLM installed. Right click and Run As Admin. This can be local on the SCOM box or a remote box. It has a very small footprint but if SCOM is heavily used, DCLM might be better on another machine. I'm not going to walk through the install of DCLM. The Install guide above does a nice job of that. Things to point out include:
3. Next, you need to install the Dell Server Management Pack Suite 5.2 to your SCOM 2012 server. Right click and Run As Admin. The install will ask for credentials for the Dell Device Helper COM+ Object. This account should most probably be a domain account that is also added as a local admin on the SCOM box. After the MP is installed, the Dell Feature Management Dashboard will most likely be blank. Leave it be for a while and continue with the next steps.
4. Download and install the System Center Monitoring Pack for WS-Management and SMASH Device Discovery from the link above. After running the package, you may still have to go to Administration, Management Packs, and Import it. Once that is done you should see 'WS-Management and SMASH Device Discovery" under Authoring, Management Pack Templates.
5. Setup SNMP on your iDracs. Go to each iDrac and make sure the SNMP community string is exactly the same. Capitalization matters. "Public" and "public" are two different community strings, but "Public" and "Public" are the same.
There are two places to check. iDrac Settings\Network\Services under SNMP Agent, and then Overview\Server\Alerts\SNMP and Email Settings. Under SNMP and Email Settings, you also need to enter the Alert Destination IP of your SCOM server and hit the Apply button in that same IP Destination List table.
6. Create a Community String account in SCOM using the community string you set on all iDracs. It doesn't matter, but I set this to More secure and distribute it to my SCOM management servers. Less secure works too. Then under profiles, open the SNMP Monitoring Account and on the Run As Accounts screen add the Community String account you created. Select "A selected class, group, or object, hit the Select button. In the Look for field change to SNMP Community and hit Search. Pick the SNMPCommunity_GUID that comes up and Add it. Press OK and Save.
7. After the Feature Management State populates, you will activate features you want to use. For the OOB we will be using the Server (Out-of-band) Monitoring. Click on it to highlight and then in the lower right corner click on Set to Server (OOB) either Scalable or Detailed Feature. The Detailed feature will give much more info including memory, processors, nics, storage controllers, disks and volumes, and BIOS info. Let this process complete before closing the task window and scroll to the bottom of that window to make sure it completed successfully.
8. Next, you need to configure the connection from SCOM to DCLM. On the Feature Management Dashboard, on the lower right under Tasks, look for and click on "Configure License Server". Click the Override button. Expand out the window and columns so you can see the full default value. Copy that for the License Web UI URL and License Web Service URL but enter your IP or FQDN to your DCLM server. For example: http://10.10.100.7:8544 and http://10.10.100.7:8543. Press the Override button at the bottom and then Run. Let this run and make sure it completes successfully.
You can verify that it should work by clicking the link to Launch Dell Connection License Manager in the tasks area and being able to browse and see your licenses.
After several more minutes, you should see number of licenses you have in DCLM show up under the Total Node Licenses column in the Dell Feature Management Dashboard.
Now we will use the Dell Server MP Suite 5.2 for SCOM User Guide for configuring the WS-Management Monitor. I'm just going to copy the steps and past them here with some of my own notes added.
To discover a Dell server using the Dell Server (Out-of-band) monitoring feature:
1. Log on to OpsMgr 2012 as an administrator for the OpsMgr Management group.
2. On the OpsMgr console, click Authoring.
3. At the bottom of the navigation pane, click Add Monitoring Wizard.
The Add Monitoring Wizard screen appears.
4. On the Select Monitoring Type screen, select WS-Management and SMASH Device Discovery and
click Next.
5. On the General Properties screen, in the Name field provide a name for the wizard.
6. Under Management pack, click New.
The Create a Management Pack screen appears.
7. Provide a name for the management pack in the Name field and click Next.
For information on creating a management pack, see the OpsMgr documentation at
technet.microsoft.com.
8. Click Create.
The management pack you created is selected in the Management pack drop-down box.
9. Click Next.
10. On the Specify the target drop-down menu, select a resource pool for monitoring out-of-band
devices and click Next.
11. On the Specify the account to be used to run discovery screen, click New and create a Simple
Authentication Run As Account. This Simple Authentication Run As Account will be the credentials used to access the iDrac. I have added the steps to manually create the account and associate it to the SMASH profile below.
12. Select the Run As Account you created from the Run As Account drop-down menu and click Next.
13. Click Add.
14. On the Add Devices screen specify the iDRAC IP address of the systems you want to monitor using
the Server (out-of-band) monitoring feature. You can specify the iDRAC IP address of the systems by:
• Scanning the IP Subnet that you provided.
• Scanning a specified IP Range.
• Importing a text file containing the list of iDRAC IP addresses.
15. Click Advanced Options, select the Skip CA Check and Skip CN Check option and click OK.
16. Click Scan for Devices to search for Dell PowerEdge 12G systems on your network.
The IP addresses are listed under Available Devices.
17. Click Add to add the list of IP addresses you want to monitor and click OK.
18. On the Specify the devices you want to monitor screen, click Create.
19. Click Close.
The scanned Dell servers initially appear in Monitoring → WS-Management and SMASH Monitoring
→ WS-Management Device State screen. After the automatically triggered SMASH discovery is
completed by the OpsMgr, the Dell servers appear in Monitoring → WS-Management and SMASH
Monitoring → SMASH Device State screen.
This is the end unless you need to manually configure the Simple Authentication account and/or associate it with the SMASH profile.
Creating A Simple Authentication Run As Account
1. Log on to OpsMgr 2012 as an administrator for the OpsMgr Management Group.
2. On the OpsMgr console, click Administration.
3. Right-click Accounts, and then click Create Run As Account.
The Create Run As Account Wizard screen is displayed.
4. Click Next.
5. From the Run As Account type drop-down menu, select Simple Authentication.
6. Provide a display name in the Display Name text box.
7. Provide a brief description in the Description text box and click Next.
8. On the Credentials screen provide the iDRAC login credentials for the systems you want to discover
using the Server (Out-Of-Band) monitoring feature.
9. Click Next.
10. Select the Less secure or More secure option as appropriate.
For more information, see the OpsMgr documentation at technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/
hh321655.aspx.
NOTE: If the iDRAC login credentials are different for each of the systems, create a separate
Run As Account for each of them.
11. Click Create.
12. After the Run As Account has been created, click Close.
Associating Run As Account For Monitoring A Dell Server Using The Server (Out-Of-Band) Monitoring Feature
For monitoring the Dell server, the Run As account used to discover it must be associated with the Dell
server in the SMASH Device Monitoring Profile. The management pack performs the association
automatically. But in some cases, you have to manually associate the Run As account.
To manually associate the Run As account in the SMASH Device Monitoring Profile:
1. Launch OpsMgr 2012, and click Administration.
2. In the Administration pane, browse to Run As Configuration → Profiles.
3. From the list of available profiles, right-click SMASH Device Monitoring Profile and click Properties.
The Introduction screen is displayed.
4. Click Next.
The Specify the Run As profile's general properties screen is displayed.
5. Click Next.
The Run As accounts screen is displayed.
