I’ve got some news. HP Storage integrations for Microsoft System Center: SCOM and SCVMM plugins are now part of the unified HP OneView for Microsoft System Center. As result of this integration, customer has to download only one master package of HP OneView for System Center 7.6.
Here are some more details on this: Continue reading “HP Storage Integrations for System Center are Now Part of HP OneView for System Center”
Insight Control for Microsoft System Center is a package of integration kits that aim to integrate HP Hardware and Software with Microsoft System Center. Here is the description of these integration kits taken from the HP site:
System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) support:
System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) support:
System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) support:
Let’s look what has changed from 7.1 version:
Support for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) 2012 SP1
System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) Management Pack Updates
Support for Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2012 SP1
Support for Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCCM) 2012 SP1
Updates to support HP Service Pack for ProLiant (SPP)
So we now have full SC 2012 SP1 and Windows Server 2012 support. This is great job of HP releasing support so soon after GA of SC 2012 SP1.
If you are wondering what have changed like versions on the SCOM management packs look here:
Keep in mind that new versions of the management pack for HP servers and blades will come only in this bundle Insight Control for Microsoft System Center. No separate downloads will be released. HP Storage Management Pack for now stays separate download and it is not provided in this package.
To download this new version go here. You only need to download Insight Control for System Center 7.2 DVD ISO – Mar 2013 for the System Center integration kits.
There is a great article at systemcentercentral.com on how to synchronize CI from SCOM to SCSM. The article shows an example with Dell Management Pack. I followed this article and will show you how to do the same for HP ProLiant Server Management Pack and HP BladeSystem Management Pack. Let first introduce what objects are discovered trough these two MPs:
So here are the steps you can follow to sync your HP CIs from SCOM to SCSM:
1. Lets assume that you imported and configured HP ProLiant Server and HP BladeSystem MPs in SCOM.
2. Next steps is to figure out what information you want to sync.
3. You can find that by going in SCOM console –> Monitoring pane –> Discovered Inventory view.
4. Right Click on the middle view and select Change Target Type.
5. Select Items to Target window appears. In Look for field type “hp” and select View all targets.
6. Here you can see the friendly names of the different classes and to which Management Pack they belong to.
7. “HP Server” is the main class that holds information for HP Servers and it is located in Hewlett-Packard Servers Core Library MP. Select it and click OK.
Note: You can select any subclass like HP ProLiant Server if you find it more convenient for you.
8. After selecting it in the middle pane you will see information about your HP Servers you have in your environment. This information you want to sync in SCSM.
9. Next step is to find the friendly name for enclosures class.
10. Right click on the middle pane again and select Change Target Type.
11. Select Items to Target window appears. In Look for field type “hp” and select View all targets.
12. “HP BladeSystem Enclosure” is the main class that holds information for HP Enclosures and it is located in Hewlett-Packard BladeSystem Management Pack. Select it and click OK.
13. You will see the information about enclosures you want to sync to SCSM.
14. For HP Enclosures I select one more class “HP BladeSystem Device Bay”.
15. This class holds information about blade servers. This is useful if you have have blade servers in the enclosures that do not have operating system and because of that they do not have SCOM agent also. WIhtout SCOM agent you not cannot get any information for them from HP ProLiant Server Management Pack but trough this class you can.
16. Next step is to see the names of the management pack and if they have dependencies.
17. Open SCOM console –> Administration pane –> Management Packs.
18. We found that the the information that we want to sync is contained in two management packs – Hewlett-Packard Servers Core Library and Hewlett-Packard BladeSystem Management Pack.
19. Find them in that view and right click on them Properties.
20. In General tab you under ID you will see thee name of the management pack. In Dependencies tab that you will see which other management pack you should also import in SCSM. If you do not have these MPs in your SCSM environment you will not be able to import the HP Management Packs.
Hewlett-Packard.Servers.Core.Library.mp
Hewlett-Packard.ProLiant.Servers.Base.mp
Hewlett-Packard.BladeSystem.mp
21. Even I do not need to import Hewlett-Packard ProLiant Servers Base Management Pack I will import it because may be later I will want to sync some information from that MP.
22. Next steps is to find the actual names of the classes we want to sync because we only have the friendly names: HP Server, HP BladeSystem Enclosure and HP BladeSystem Device Bay.
23. Open Operations Manager PowerShell and execute the following commands one by one:
24. The commands will find all properties about classes that have these display names. Against property Name you will find the actual names of the classes we need:
25. Now that we have the actual names of the classes we want to sync we have to import the 3 HP management packs in SCSM.
26. Open SCSM console. Navigate to Administration pane –> Management Packs.
27. Click Import from Actions menu. Find the location where you store your MPs select the 3 HP MPs and import them.
28. If the MPs are imported successfully next step is to add the classes we have found to the allowed list of classes for syncing in SCSM.
29. Logon to your SCSM server.
30. Start PowerShell and execute these commands:
31. With the last command you will be able to see the HP classes added in the allowed list for sync.
32. Next step is to configure your SCOM CI Connector in SCSM to sync the HP Management Packs.
33. Open SCSM console. Navigate to Administration pane –> Connectors.
34. Find you SCOM CI Connector in the list of connectors and double click on it.
35. The Properties window of that connector will be opened.
36. Select the configuration option for Management Packs.
37. In order to see your newly imported HP Management Packs you have to click Refresh button. When you click Refresh you will be asked for the password of the account that is used to sync management packs between SCOM and SCSM. Enter the password and press OK.
38. When refresh is done the new management packs will appear in the list. Select them and click OK to save settings.
39. Wait until next synchronization schedule of SCOM CI Connector to see if synchronization was successful.
40. When synchronization is done you can create views to see the synchronized data in SCSM.
41. Open SCSM console. Navigate to Configuration Items. Create new folder. You can name the folder “HP Devices” or any convenient name for you.
42. Under that folder you can create 3 different views that have different HP classes for Criteria.
Note: This configuration was tested with SCOM 2007 R2 and SCSM 2010 but it should also work for SCOM 2012 and SCSM 2012.
Note: You can sync more classes than the ones described in the article depending on your customers needs. Just add these classes to the allowed for sync list in point 30.
In my previous post I’ve covered the configuration of the management pack for HP Enclosures. But this MP only monitors health of the enclosures and not the blade servers inside via SCOM. In order to monitor blade servers or any other standalone HP server you have to install and configure HP ProLiant Server Management Pack. Actually if you want to use HP BaldeSystem Management pack you must import HP ProLiant Server Management Pack also.
HP ProLiant Server Management Pack can monitor HP servers trough two different methods:
As I am a Windows Engineer I prefer WMI method and on this article I will cover only this way of implementation.
The guide that is provided with this management pack covers both methods and I recommend reading it. This article will walk you trough the basic actions you need to do to install and configure HP ProLiant Management Pack for SCOM:
1. First you need to download the management pack itself from here. The MP is part of HP Insight Control for Microsoft System Center solution.
2. You will download one zip file that contains – 32-bit installation file, 64-bit installation file, License agreement file, Release notes file, User Guide and Troubleshooting Guide.
3. Copy 64-bit installation (if your SCOM server is 32-bit use 32-bit installation) to your RMS server and install it. It is pretty simple installation you can leave the default options. During the installation you will be present to choose if you want to install SNMP based method, WMI based method or both. If you choose only one of the methods the installation will only import the management pack that corresponds to the chosen method. It is best to choose both because you can always switch between methods or for example you can monitor one group of servers with one method and another group with the other one.
Note In the documentation of the MP it is not mentioned that the MP requires to be installed on the RMS server. In fact the MP can be installed on any Management Server or any server that have SCOM agent installed.
4. After the installation is finished the HP ProLiant Management Pack should be imported in SCOM and HP Custom Data Manager application should be installed. This application will allow you to enter additional information (fore example end of hardware support date) for individual servers that will be populated in SCOM Database.
5. After the MPs are imported discovery of HP servers will start. Discoveries are enabled by default so there is no additional configuration there. At this step it is best to check if all your HP monitored servers have HP Insight Management WBEM Providers installed. This can be achieved by opening SCOM console and navigating to Monitoring Pane –> HP Systems –> Windows Server State. Here you can see the discovered HP Servers in your environment. Modify this view to show HP Management Version column. This will show you if SCOM agent found HP Insight Management WBEM Providers.
6. Next and final step is to configure the MP to use WMI based method. By default HP ProLiant Server MP uses SNMP based method and this can be switched to WMI by overriding a rule. To do that you have to navigate to Authoring Pane –> Management Pack Object –> Object Discoveries. There you have to look for HP ProLiant Server Discovery Rule. When you find that rule select it and right click on it. Select Overrides –> Override the Object Discovery ->For all objects of type: Windows Computer. A new dialog will appear. Select all check boxes under Override column, change the value for SNMPWMIPrefernece from SNMP to WMI and save the override to your HP ProLiant Server Management Pack for overrides.
Note If you want to switch to WMI based method only for particular servers create SCOM group and populate the group with the servers you want to monitor via that method. When you make the override in step 6 override for specific group and choose the custom created group.
7. This will switch to WMI based method for all Windows computers in your environment. After you made this setting you can again navigate to Monitoring Pane –> HP Systems –> Windows Server State.Edit the view to show Monitoring Source column. You will see your HP servers slowly switching from HP Insight Management Agents for monitoring source to HP Insight Management WBEM Providers.
After step 7 no further overrides are need in order to make HP ProLiant Server Management pack to work via WMI based method.
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