Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager v1.2

Editor's Notes

1. Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager provides customers with a number of capabilities to help streamline operations and increase productivity. Along with the single console that centralizes management for multiple enclosures, the central database helps to eliminate the risk of address conflicts. The new domain grouping feature creates baselines to simplify configuration and change management, and provides the basis that allows VCEM to move server profiles between enclosures Organizations with multiple Bladesystem enclosures can use Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager to complete tasks across the datacenter more quickly, consistently and reliably, such as: Adding new blade servers and BladeSystem enclosures Modifying multiple enclosure configurations Recovering problematic servers to spare blades Performing more efficient system maintenance Migrating and repurposing servers to address workload requirements A subsequent slide in this presentation takes a closer look at some of the primary usage scenarios
2. Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager provides customers with a number of capabilities to help streamline operations and increase productivity. Along with the single console that centralizes management for multiple enclosures, the central database helps to eliminate the risk of address conflicts. The new domain grouping feature creates baselines to simplify configuration and change management, and provides the basis that allows VCEM to move server profiles between enclosures Organizations with multiple Bladesystem enclosures can use Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager to complete tasks across the datacenter more quickly, consistently and reliably, such as: Adding new blade servers and BladeSystem enclosures Modifying multiple enclosure configurations Recovering problematic servers to spare blades Performing more efficient system maintenance Migrating and repurposing servers to address workload requirements A subsequent slide in this presentation takes a closer look at some of the primary usage scenarios
3. Virtual Connect domain grouping allows multiple enclosures that access the same networks to be configured and managed using a common profile. This increases infrastructure consistency and simplifies the deployment of new enclosures. The first enclosure added to a domain group establishes the master configuration that all other group members will use, which includes LAN and SAN connections. Administrators can now make changes to multiple enclosures using a single process, or install new bare-metal enclosures more quickly by simply adding then to a domain group. The master profile of the domain group will automatically apply the same connection configurations to the new enclosure, which avoids having to configure each enclosure individually and allows new hardware to be deployed quickly Domain grouping saves time, reduces deployment costs and removes the potential for configuration errors and conflicts
4. Since the introduction of Virtual Connect technology administrators have been able to move server profiles between the bays of a single enclosure using the embedded Virtual Connect Manager. With Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager HP has expanded this capability across the datacenter. Administrators can now move or failover server profiles between enclosure bays, BladeSystem enclosures and Virtual Connect domains within the same Virtual Connect domain group with just a few mouse clicks. Whether the target is the next bay, an enclosure in the adjacent rack or another datacenter, as long as the source and target locations are within the same Virtual Connect domain group the move is possible. And because Virtual Connect technology is at the heart of the solution, LAN and SAN connections automatically move with the server profile to the target location and are re-established Server profile movement can be initiated manually through the VCEM UI or scripted through a command line. The v1.10 release in May 2008 also introduced the ability to establish a pool of spare servers for each VC Domain Group that can be used to help automate the failover of Virtual Connect profiles for an even faster response to known system events or performance conditions. Subsequent slides provide more detail of profile failover VCEM includes profile movement history and an audit trail of who did what, and when they did it. Future releases plan to include tighter integration with customers ’ change management processes Customers will see the best results from this capability in a Boot from SAN environment, where profile movement and server availability can be completed in a few minutes with no additional intervention because the boot OS is already on the SAN. The profile failover capability requires boot-from SAN. Local boot environments will require additional administration to ensure a bootable operating system is available prior to server profile movement. In this scenario the HP Rapid Deployment Pack could be used as an efficient solution to quickly deploy a bootable OS image.
5. This slide represents some of the core uses cases for server profile movement, which includes: Cost effective server recovery to any spare bay within a Virtual Connect Domain Group, even if the CPU and memory size is not identical. More efficient systems maintenance that avoids lengthy production downtime or significant out of hours operations A simple solution for repurposing or migrating server resources and workloads across the datacenter
6. Note: This slide is animated and best shown in slideshow mode . 2 mouse clicks complete the sequence To further demonstrate the principles of server profile movement, this example shows a simple Virtual Connect Domain group containing 2 BladeSystem c-Class enclosures. At the top Virtual Connect is controlling the connections to the LAN and VLANs on the left and the boot-from SAN and application environment on the right. The red server represents a production server and the blue server a designated spare. In the event that the production server needs replacing or removing from production, and we need to move the workload to another server, all we need to do is power down the red server, move the server profile to the blue server in the other enclosure using Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager, and then power up the blue server which has now replaced the original production server. We discussed on the previous slide we can perform this process manually, or use the profile failover capability to help automate and speed up the process When we move the server profile all the LAN, SAN and OS boot information moves with it and Virtual Connect automatically re-establishes the network connections
7. Organizations with multiple Bladesystem enclosures can use Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager to complete tasks across the datacenter more quickly, consistently and reliably, such as: Adding new blade servers and BladeSystem enclosures Recovering problematic servers to spare blades Performing more efficient system maintenance Or migrating and repurposing servers to address workload requirements Organizations with multiple remote locations can also use the domain grouping capabilities to centralize infrastructure management, and reduce travel costs
8. VCEM can be installed usinf 3 primary methods: as a standalone solution on its own physical server, as a plug-in to HP SIM v5.2 and higher, or as a standalone install on an ESX VM. NOTE: The standalone option is recommended for installing VCEM on a VM because not all elements in HP SIM (e.g. Service and Warranty Management ) work well on a VM host, plus there are also performance issues to consider.
9. This slide helps to demonstrate the real value that VCEM enclosure-based licensing provides. Traditional per server licensing usually means that you have to repurchase software licenses when you replace or upgrade servers. With enclosure-based licensing you can now add, modify and even upgrade servers to new generations without having to replace the Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager software license VCEM enclosure-based licensing covers all bays in the enclosure for the life of the enclosure