Dell SCOM Management Pack 6.2 Released

The Dell SCOM Management Pack version 6.2 has been released.  Downloadable here: http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=X95GK

Once downloaded and extracted, there is a Readme file that has more info including supported firmware versions and known issues.  Here are the listed fixes and enhancements and a little more info to know.

Fixes & Enhancements

Fixes :
1. If OMSA is not installed, the server's hostname may be reported incorrectly in DRAC inventory. 
2. NIC and TEAMED NIC association (Intel) are reported incorrectly.

Enhancements:
1. Simplified discovery and monitoring; Chassis Detailed discovery and Slot discovery do not require RACADM utility. 
2. Support for monitoring Dell-branded OEM Servers and Dell OEM-Ready servers.

More info to know

Server Monitoring (Agent-based):

---------------------------------

* The Attribute "Enable Correlation" for "Dell Windows Server Physical and

  Teamed Relationship Discovery Rule" is set to "False" for all Teamed Network

  Interface (Enriched) in the Dell Windows Server (Detailed Edition)

  Management Pack. Set the attribute value to "True", to see the relationships

  between Physical and Teamed Network Interfaces in the "Complete Diagram View",

  "Modular Systems Diagram View" and "Monolithic Servers Diagram View"

* The Performance Rules "Total Transmitted Packets", "Received Bytes",

  "Total Received Packets" and "Transmitted Bytes" are disabled by default for 

  all Physical Network Interface (Enriched) in the Dell Windows Server

  (Detailed Edition) Management Pack. Enable these rules to generate 

  performance statistics for the Physical Network Interfaces.

    

* The Performance Rules "Total Transmitted Packets", "Received Bytes",

  "Total Received Packets" and "Transmitted Bytes" are disabled by default for 

  all Teamed Network Interface (Enriched) in the Dell Windows Server

  (Detailed Edition) Management Pack. Enable these rules to generate

  performance statistics for the Teamed Network Interfaces.

* The Dependency Monitor "Dell Server Availability Rollup (from iDRAC)"

  is disabled by default for all Dell Servers in the Dell Scalable management 

  pack.  Enable this monitor to rollup the iDRAC network interface health to 

  the Dell Server health.

  * The Performance Rule "Dell Server (Agent-based) Physical Disk (SSD) 

  Performance", is disabled by default for all Physical Disks and is a part of 

  the Dell Windows Server (Detailed Edition) Management Pack. Enable this rule 

  to generate performance statistics for the Remaining Rated Endurance Level of

  the SSDs (Solid State Drives).

Server Monitoring (Agent-free):

---------------------------------

* To use the Server Agent-free features, download the Microsoft WS-Management

  template from the Microsoft download location mentioned in the Dell Server 

  Management Pack Suite Version 6.2 User’s Guide.

  

* Performance rules are disabled by default.  Enable "Dell Server Performance

  rule" to view the Server performance data (temperature, power and Network 

  Interface Card (NIC)and CPU, Memory, IO and CUPS).

  

* Performance Unit Monitors are disabled by default. Enable the performance 

  unit monitors to get performance health status.

* Health Monitoring for components under Software RAID controllers is not 

  supported. Data required for health monitoring not available from the device 

  for such components.

* Network Link status for PowerEdge FX2/FX2s shows internal NIC connectivity; 

  network cable removal does not affect Network Link status for PowerEdge 

  FX2/FX2s.

Remote Access Monitoring:

---------------------------------

* The Unit Monitor "Device Status Check" is disabled for all Dell Remote Access 

  Controllers in the Dell Remote Access Controller Management Pack for 

  SCOM 2007 R2.

Chassis Monitoring:

---------------------------------

* In Slot Discovery, the slot name for the slots containing FD332 Storage block,  

  will be shown as SLOT-(Slot Number).

  

* Slot names displayed by CMC Slot Discovery may differ from the slot names 

  shown by the CMC web console.

  

* The Discovery Rule "Dell Chassis Detailed Discovery" in the Dell Chassis 

 (Detailed Edition) Management Pack discovers and monitors the Chassis 

  components (Storage, Fans, Chassis Management controllers, PCIe devices etc.)

  This discovery requires the creation of Run As accounts for the Dell Chassis 

  in your network and have them associated with the "Dell CMC Login Account". 

  For more information on configuring Run As Accounts refer to the User’s Guide.

  This discovery also uses RACADM to connect to the Dell Chassis. The racadm 

  uses Internet Explorer Proxy Settings of SCOM Health Service user account to 

  connect to the CMC Devices.  Ensure that Internet Explorer Proxy Settings of 

  the SCOM Health Service user account is configured such that CMC devices are 

  reachable. For instructions on modifying the Internet Explorer settings, see 

  Microsoft KB article 135982.

* The Discovery Rule "Dell CMC Slot Discovery" is disabled for all Dell Chassis 

  Management Controllers in the Dell Chassis Management Controller Management 

  Pack. Enable this rule to discover server modules and free slots for Dell 

  Chassis Management Controllers after you have created Run As Accounts for the 

  CMC devices in your network and associated them with the "Dell CMC Login 

  Account".  For more information on configuring Run As Accounts refer to the 

  User’s Guide.

* The Unit Monitor "Device Status Check" is disabled for all Dell Chassis 

  Management Controllers in the Dell Chassis Management Controller Management 

  Pack for SCOM 2007 R2.

* To monitor the health of Chassis devices, associate the community string Run 

  As account with the SNMP Monitoring Account with the target as Dell Modular 

  Chassis class or respective Chassis object (if you have different Run As 

  accounts for different Chassis devices.)

Recent issues found in both Dell SCOM MP and Nutanix MP

Here are two issues we recently found in these Management Packs.

1. This is not a bug, but rather something to be aware of.  The Dell SCOM Management Pack uses PowerShell for many of the scripts.  That means that if you have any PowerShell protected characters in your iDrac credentials or possibly SNMP community names, the scripts may not work.

2. Nutanix Management Pack v1.3 has a possible bug that has been submitted to be looked at.  If you have a dash "-" in your Nutanix SNMP name, the dash can cause the SNMP service to crash on the CVM.

Dell Server Management Pack with Agent-Free and SNMP Monitoring

This post gives instructions on how to setup the Agent-Free Monitoring with WSman and SMASH discovery and then SNMP Monitoring through the iDracs.  Some of this document I have copied from another document, but heavily modified to make corrections and added a good bit of instruction so that it will be a more complete guide.

Deploying the Dell Server Management Pack

Follow this procedure to deploy the Dell Server Management Pack (MP) for SCOM.

1.1 Network prerequisites

All iDRAC IPs must be accessible from the Management Console and routable to the management network.  From the Management Console ping the IP of each iDRAC to ensure it is reachable.

1.2 Hardware Prerequisites

Validate on each iDRAC that its Alerts are set to Enabled and Alerts set to go to the OpsMgr server.

NOTE: If you have a lot of iDracs and want to programmatically set this on all at once, you can either use OpenManage Essentials, or I will post a script or link to one soon to do this.

1. Login to each iDrac and go to Alerts.  Set Alerts to Enabled and then click the Apply button in the same box.

2. Set Alerts and Remote System Log Configuration.  The SNMP Trap needs to be set on all 19 pages.  Select SNMP Trap box from the title bar which will check all boxes for SNMP traps on that page.  Then click the right arrow to advance to the next page and select the SNMP Trap box from the title bar again to mark all on that page.  Continue doing this on each page until all 19 pages are done and then click the Apply button. 

3. Next, click over to the SNMP and Email Settings page.  Under IP Destination List, add your OpsMgr server IP, and enable the State box.  The Community String will be used to create a Run As Account in OpsMgr in section 1.7 below.

1.3 Install Steps for Configuring the WS-Management and SMASH Device Template

Download the System Center Monitoring Pack for WS-Management and SMASH Device Discovery: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29266

1. Launch the WS-ManagementAndSMASHDeviceDiscoveryTemplate.msi file.

2. Click Next.

The license agreement is displayed.

3. To continue the installation, accept the license terms after reading them, and click Next.

4. Click Change (if necessary) to change the default installation folder and click Next.

5. Click Install.

6. Log on to OpsMgr 2012 R2 as an administrator for the OpsMgr Management group, preferably by right clicking and selecting Run As Admin.

7. On the OpsMgr console, click Administration, and then click on Import Management Packs under Actions.

8. Add from Disk.  Select No for Online Catalog Collection.

9. Select Management Packs to Import.  Import the MPB file from the extracted location.

“C:\Program Files(x86)\System Center Management Packs\WSManagementAndDeviceDiscoveryTemplate\

Microsoft.SystemCenter.OutofBand.SMASH.Library.mpb”

10. Click Install.

11. Once completed Select Close

12. On the OpsMgr console, click Authoring.

13. Expand Management Pack Templates.

14. Once that is done you should see 'WS-Management and SMASH Device Discovery".

15. At the bottom of the left navigation pane, click Add Monitoring Wizard.

16. The Add Monitoring Wizard screen appears.

17. On the Select Monitoring Type screen, select WS-Management and SMASH Device Discovery and click Next.

19. On the General Properties screen, enter a friendly name and description.  In the Name field provide a name for the wizard.

20. Under Management Pack, click New.

21. The Create a Management Pack screen appears.  Provide a name for the management pack in the Name field, such as Dell OOB MP, and click Next.

For information on creating a management pack, see the OpsMgr documentation at technet.microsoft.com.

22. Click Create.

23. The management pack you created is selected in the Management pack drop-down box. Dell OOB MP

24. Click Next.

25. On the Specify the target drop-down menu, select a resource pool for monitoring out-of-band

Devices.  If you have created a resource pool with a limited set of management servers, use that.  Otherwise, use All Management Servers Resource Pool and click Next.

26. On the Specify the account to be used to run discovery screen, click New and create a Simple Authentication RunAs Account.  This Simple Authentication RunAs Account will be the credentials used to access the iDRAC.

27. For Display Name use iDRAC ACCOUNT

28. On the Credentials page, enter your iDrac credentials.  Click Next.

29. On the Distribution Security page, select Less Secure – I want the credentials to be distributed automatically to all managed computers.

30. Select Create then Select Close.

31. On the Credentials Screen, select the RunAs Account you created from the RunAs Account drop-down menu and click Next.

32. On the Devices page, specify the devices you want to monitor. Here you will add your iDRAC IPs. Click Add.

33. 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.  If you list contains more than 100 IPs, please split it into multiple files with less than 100 in each test file.

34. Click Advanced Options, select the Skip CA Check and Skip CN Check option and click OK.

35. Click Scan for Devices to search for Dell PowerEdge 13G systems on your network. Depending on the number of devices it may take quite a while.

36. The IP addresses that were able to be communicated with are listed under Available Devices. Highlight the devices click Add to add the list of IP addresses you want to monitor and click OK.

38. Back on the Specify the devices you want to monitor screen click Next and then on the Summary screen click Create.

40. On the OpsMgr console, click Monitoring.

41. Expand → WS-Management and SMASH Monitoring → WS-Management Device State.

The Dell servers will appear here after the automatically triggered SMASH discovery is completed by the OpsMgr.  NOTE: This may take between 5 and 20 minutes.  NOTE: do not proceed past this section if SMASH Device State is not populated.

42. Continue if the SMASH Device State is populated

1.4 Install steps for Dell Server Management Pack Suite

***NOTE:  A newer version has been released and should be used instead of 6.1.1.  http://bradsjumpbag.blogspot.com/2016/02/dell-scom-management-pack-62-released.html***

Download the Dell Server Management Pack Suite for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager v6.1.1: http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=8F4J0

Open an administrative command prompt window and run Dell_Server_Management_Pack_Suite_v6.1.1_A00.exe

The following MPs are automatically imported after the installation of Dell Server Management Pack

Suite:

• Agent-based monitoring feature.

• Agent-free monitoring feature.

• Dell Feature Management Pack. The Feature Management Dashboard is displayed under

Monitoring → Dell on the OpsMgr console. Refer to the individual monitoring sections in the User Guide for importing the monitoring features.  http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/product-support/product/dell-srvr-mgt-pck-v6.1.1-mscom/manuals

NOTE: It can take 15-30 minutes before the Feature Management State Dashboard is populated.

1.5 Set the Agent-Free Monitoring Level

1. Go to the navigation pane and select Monitoring. Select Dell Feature Management Dashboard.

2. Select Server and Rack Agent-Free Monitoring

3. From Task Pane, use either "Set to Agent-free Detailed Feature" or "Set to Agent-free Scalable Feature" depending on the unit monitors you want to be available.  See link in Note below.

4. Do not close the task window until it has finished.

NOTE: Keep in mind that many of the unit monitors are not enabled by default.  http://bradsjumpbag.blogspot.com/2015/07/dell-opsmgr-mp-suite-unit-monitors-for.html

1.6 Install iDRAC Monitoring Feature

From the Dell Feature Management State Dashboard install the iDRAC Monitoring Feature.

1. Go to the navigation pane and select Monitoring. Select Dell Feature Management Dashboard.

2. Select DRAC Monitoring

3. From Task Pane select Import DRAC Monitoring Feature.

4. Do not close the task window until it has finished.

1.7 Discovering iDRAC Devices

The DRAC devices must be discovered as network devices under the Administration section of the

OpsMgr console.

Create a Community String Run As Account:

1. Log on to the management server as an OpsMgr administrator, preferably by right clicking and selecting Run as Admin.

2. On the OpsMgr console, click Administration.

3. Right click on Run As Configuration -> Accounts and select Create Run As Account.

4. Change the Run As account type to Community String, give it a name in Display name, and click Next.

5. On the Credentials page, type in the community string exactly as it was on the iDrac SNMP and Email Settings page.  This is essentially a password and is case sensitive.  Click Next.

6. Select Less secure on the Distribution Security page and click Create.

Associate the Community String account with the SNMP Monitoring Profile:

1. Click on Run As Configuration -> Profiles.

2. Find SNMP Monitoring Account, right click on it and select Properties.

3. On the General page click Next.

4. On the Add Run As account page, click Add.

5. In the Run As account drop down box, select the Community String account we just created.  Leave it targeted to All target objects.

6. Click Save and then Close.

To discover DRAC devices:

1. At the bottom of the navigation pane, click Discovery Wizard.

2. Run the Discovery Wizard, select Network devices and follow the instructions on the screen.

3. On the Default Accounts page, click the Create Account button.

4. The Create Run As Account Wizard will open with the type already selected on CommunityString.

5. In Display name field, enter a name for the account and click Next.

6. On the Provide account credentials page, in the Community string field, type in the same community string that was on the SNMP and Email Settings page in the iDrac from section 1.2 above and then click Create.

7. Back in the Specify the default Run As account for discovery page, select the Run As Accounts you want to use for your iDracs.

8. On the Specify devices page click Add or Import.  With Add, you will type in a single iDrac IP at a time and you can specify specific Run As Accounts if they are different on some iDracs.  Import will let you use a text file.  The Access Mode can stay on ICMP and SNMP.

9. On the Schedule the network discovery page, select Run the discovery rule manually.

10. Finish creating the discovery rule and select the box to Run the discovery after the wizard is closed.

11. Once the iDracs have been discovered they will show up under Monitoring → Dell → State Views →DRAC.

1.8 Monitoring

After you install the Dell Server Management Pack Suite, you can use the Monitoring pane of the

OpsMgr to select views that provide complete health information of the discovered Dell DRAC devices.

The DRAC monitoring feature discovers and monitors the health of the Dell DRAC devices. It includes monitoring health of Dell DRAC devices, both at regular intervals and on occurrence of events.

1.9 Validate Alerts and SNMP traps

Send a Test Alert from the iDRAC console.

The Alert will show up under Dell -> Alerts Views -> RemoteAccess Alerts

2.0 SNMP Monitoring Account Options

If you want to the SNMP Monitoring Account to be targeted more tightly, you can target specific classes instead of leaving it targeted to “all targeted objects”.  The specific classes you may want to use include:

Dell Modular Chassis

Dell CMC

Dell DRAC/MC

Dell Server

Dell iDRAC

Dell Remote Access Controller Group

You may not need all of these.  I put them here because I have all of them mainly for the troubleshooting that I do to cover my bases.

Del DTK 5.2 released doesn't work with ADK10

What I ran into is that the Dell DTK 5.2 will not import into Configuration Manager with Dell Server Deployment Pack (DSDP) if you already have ADK10 installed.  DTK 5.2 is not compatible with ADK10.  So if you want to import DTK5.2, you will have to uninstall ADK10, reinstall ADK8.1, then install DTK5.2.  I suppose that after that you could try to reinstall ADK10, but your boot images created with DTK5.2 will not have the ADK10 components.

Dell Operations Manager MP Suite 6.1.1 Released

I'm a little behind on this but Dell released the Dell SCOM Mp Suite 6.1.1 in early August to add support for a couple of new servers and to resolve an issue with the 6.1 installer.

Here is the link for the wiki:  http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/systems-management/w/wiki/4118.dell-server-management-pack-suite

Here is the direct link for the 6.1.1 download page.  http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=8F4J0

The 6.1 installer was an msi that had to be run from an elevated command prompt.  If you didn't run the 6.1 from an elevated cmd, you are most likely missing the Dell Device Helper COM+ Object.  A simple repair install from an elevated cmd will resolve that or you can download and upgrade to 6.1.1.

Dell OpsMgr MP Suite Unit Monitors

If you have installed the Dell SCOM MP Suite and are wondering why some of the columns may not be lighting up, this post may help.

Here is the link to the Dell Server Management Pack Suite v6.1 for System Center Operations Manager User's Guide because I will reference it several times in this post.  http://topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/dell-srvr-mgmt-pck-v6.1-mscom_User's%20Guide_en-us.pdf

First I will give you some page numbers to see charts for the different monitoring features so you can see and make decisions on what you want to monitor and view.

Agent-based:

Comparison of Scalable and Detailed on page 10.
Discoveries by the Agent-based Monitoring Feature (Scalable & Detailed) starting on page 11.

Monitored hardware components (Scalable vs. Detailed) starting on page 12.

Unit Monitors (Scalable vs. Detailed) starting the bottom of page 19.

Agent-free:

Comparison of Scalable and Detailed on page 33.

Discoveries by the Agent-free Monitoring Feature  page 35.

Monitored hardware components (Scalable vs. Detailed) starting on page 36.

Unit Monitors (Scalable vs. Detailed) starting the bottom of page 41.

DRAC:

Discoveries by the DRAC Monitoring Feature on page 50.

Unit Monitors starting the bottom of page 52.

Chassis Monitoring Feature:

Discoveries by the Dell Chassis Monitoring Feature on page 58.

Monitored hardware components (Scalable vs. Detailed) starting on page 58.

Unit Monitors starting the bottom of page 62.

***The rest of this post will focus on the Agent-free monitoring.***

Once you install the MP Suite and you have your Agent-free devices discovered, the next thing to do will be to right click on the column headers and click on Personalize View.  Then there will be several options here you can select to see more info about your servers in the main view.

Check the items you want.  Some may have the same information as others so you may have to play with it a little to see which ones you want and which you don't.  

Depending on whether you enabled the Scalable or Detailed discoveries on the Dell Feature Management Dashboard, some items may or may not be running discoveries already.  Those are described in the charts listed above.

But to see the unit monitors light up, you still have some work to do.  As you can see in the first picture above, the Dell Server Memory Group says Not Monitored.

There are 2 types of Unit Monitors to be aware of (Event and Periodic).

• Event - triggered by the event that the Dell instrumentation logs in the Windows event log, indicating the health of the corresponding object.
• Periodic - triggered by a periodic poll configured as Interval Seconds.

Next, go to Authoring, Management Pack Objects, Monitors.  Use the Look For search box and type in "Dell Server".

Find the Unit Monitors that you chose from the charts listed above, that you want to enable.  For example, we will look at the Dell Server Memory Group.  Find the Dell Server Memory Group\Entity Health\Availability\Dell Server Memory Group.  Right click on it and select Overrides\Override the Monitor\For all object of class: Dell Server Memory Group.

On the Override Properties screen, you have several items you can change.  To enable the item, you need to check the Enabled line and change it to True.  And check the Generates Alert option and change it to True if you want alerts from this component.  Other items I suggest you look at include:

Alert on State - do you want an alert only in critical state or in both warning and critical states.

Alert Priority - depending on the component you may want to increase the priority of the alert.

Alert Severity - again, depending on the component and how important it is you might want to change this too.

Auto-Resolve Alert - do you want the alert to auto-resolve when it sees the condition change back to healthy or do you want to have to acknowledge the alert and close it in OpsMgr.

Interval Seconds - depending on the component and its importnace, I wouldn't change this one too much.  The lower the time, the more polling the OpsMgr server will do of that component, which increases load and traffic.

Log Level - is more for troubleshooting.  If necessary, change this from 0 to 1 and you should get a log at the interval seconds time, in a sub-folder at C:\Windows\Temp.

Once you have your options set, save this to a management pack, but don't use the default management pack.

Give it some time and possibly hit refresh and then your monitors will light up.  Do this for all of the unit monitors that you want to get alerts for.