Overview

This wiki post discusses how to benefit from using the powerful feature of the Dell Smart Plug-in version 3.0 (SPI). Dell SPI enables you to associate the Dell Blade Servers 9^th Generation through 12th Generation with their corresponding Dell Remote Access Controllers (DRACs), and classify them under respective Dell chassis (Chassis Management Controller (CMC)/Dell Remote Access Management Controller (DRAC/MC)) slots in the HP Operations Manager (HPOM) Console.  This includes:

• Classification of Chassis Management Controller (CMC) M1000e and association of 10G, 11G, and 12G Blade Servers, with corresponding iDRAC6 and iDRAC7 devices.
• Classification of DRAC/MC 1955 and association with 9G Blade Servers.

Deploying the Dell Hardware Autogrouping Policy

The scheduled task policy “Dell Hardware Autogrouping Policy” is used to classify and associate Dell devices in the HP Operations Manager console. The default interval of this policy is set to weekly on Sundays at 04:00; this interval can be changed to custom values as required. Policies are deployed via Management Server. Once the “Dell Hardware Autogrouping Policy” is executed, the Dell Servers and associated DRACs are classified by the Chassis    Slot where they are inserted, in the Node Hierarchy of HPOM console.

Server-DRAC-Chassis Association in Node Hierarchy and Service Hierarchy

One of the key things to notice here is that the multi-part association of the Dell Server, DRAC and Chassis happens only in the Node Hierarchy on the HP Operations Manager console. In contrast, the Service Hierarchy shows the logical grouping of all the CMC and DRAC/MC along with their overall Global Health Status.

In Node Hierarchy, a CMC provides information for each slot; including blade servers with their iDRACs inserted in each slot. The CMC slot names are the combination of Server host name and its Service tag; installed blade servers and iDRACs will be classified under respective slots.

Node Hierarchy:

• Dell Managed Systems
  • Dell Chassis
    • CMC
      • CMC IP(Chassis Service Tag)
        • Slot 1 <Server Service Tag>
          • Server IP/Hostname
          • iDRAC IP/Hostname
        • Slot 2 <Server Service Tag>
          • Server IP/Hostname
          • iDRAC IP/Hostname
        • Slot 3 <Server Service Tag>
          • Server IP/Hostname
          • iDRAC IP/Hostname
        • Slot 4 <Server Service Tag>
          • Server IP/Hostname
          • iDRAC IP/Hostname
        • Slot 5 <Server Service Tag>
          • Server IP/Hostname
          • iDRAC IP/Hostname
        • Slot 6 <Server Service Tag>
          • Server IP/Hostname
          • iDRAC IP/Hostname

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

• DRAC MC
  • DRAC MC IP
    • Server IP/Hostname

If the blade in a particular slot is powered off, then the CMC slot SRO will be as follows:

• Slot# - Hostname – (Power Off)

If there is no blade in a particular slot, then the CMC slot SRO will be as follows:

• Slot# - Hostname – (Empty)

If there is a full length blade in a half-length CMC, then the slot SRO will be as follows:

• Slot#1/#2 - Hostname – (Blade Service Tag)

Example –

In the above example, Chassis CMC1.hpdom.com has chassis service tag “CHASS01”. It shows in SLOT-2 a server with hostname “Server4” together with its associated iDRAC7 which has hostname “iDRAC7-MOD-174”. This is indicated by the combination of hostname and server service tag as “SLOT 2 – Server4 (WINMOD004)”.

In the Service Hierarchy, Chassis Management Controllers are represented as a combination of host names and service tags under the label ”CMC”.   The “Global System Status” Service represents the global system status of the corresponding CMC devices.

Service Hierarchy:

• Dell Hardware
  • Dell Chassis
    • CMC
      • CMC IP (Service Tag)
        • CMC IP: Global System Status
        • DRAC MC
          • DRAC/MC IP (Service Tag)
            • DRAC/MC IP: Global System Status

Example-

CMC in the Service Hierarchy:

DRAC/MC in the Service Hierarchy:

Alert Propagation in the Server – DRAC- Chassis association

Traps from Modular Blade servers and their associated DRACs are shown with their respective nodes. Traps from different servers and DRACs of a chassis are aggregated and shown at the chassis node level.

In this example, when Active Messages of CMC node is selected, messages of all the servers and DRACs along with the messages of CMC are shown for the CMC node.

Health Propagation Rule

In Node view, the health message with highest severity (Global System Status and SNMP Traps) is associated with the corresponding managed node. Chassis health is computed as lowest health of all Chassis and Modular Blades and associated DRAC modules.

In Service view, the Global System Status health is queried from the CMC device which represents the health of that CMC node.

Example:

In this example even though the health status of CMC-17F125 shows as normal in the service hierarchy, the overall health status in the node hierarchy shows as Critical in this case; that is, the highest severity  of all the messages for all blades and DRACs inserted in that CMC.  

Refer to the following links:

• Dell OpenManage Connection for HP Operations Manager
• OpenManage Connections for 3rd Party Console Integration Forum