For servers running business-critical applications, “out-of-band” access is critical for diagnosing and troubleshooting operational issues or failures at the hardware level. Out-of band-management technologies such as HP integrated Lights Out (iLO) functionality for HP ProLiant servers and the integrated Dell Remote Access Controller (iDRAC) for Dell PowerEdge servers are critical when you need to troubleshoot an issue on a server that either is not running an operating system or is running an operating system, but has halted and is no longer “on the network”.
Out-of-Band Management Support for HP ProLiant and Dell PowerEdge Servers
When the operating system is running and servers are up on the network and accessible, the HP ProLiant ZenPack and the Dell PowerEdge ZenPack from Zenoss use the standard server management interfaces provided by HP and Dell to automatically discover and model server components, monitor server performance and availability, and alert administrators when issues occur. However, Zenoss out-of-band monitoring support for HP ProLiant and Dell PowerEdge Servers also means you can still have insight into the possible root cause of a server issue— even when the operating system on the server isn’t running.
Zenoss can access HP ProLiant or Dell PowerEdge servers even when the operating system isn’t running by leveraging the out-of-band management capabilities built into the HP ProLiant and Dell PowerEdge servers to gather out-of-band hardware health, performance, and availability metrics, including metrics and statistics for the following KPIs:
- Power consumption
- Thermals
- Uptime statistics
HP ProLiant ZenPack
The HP ProLiant ZenPack provides support for monitoring HP ProLiant Servers (G6,G7 and G8), including blade servers with the HP ProLiant c3000 and c7000 enclosures. In-band monitoring is performed via the HP Insight Manager agent using the SNMP API interface and support HP ProLiant servers running on Windows, Linux, or VMware EXSi.
The HP ProLiant ZenPack provides out-of-band monitoring via HP integrated Lights Out (iLO) technology, independent of the host operating system.
Dell PowerEdge ZenPack
The Dell PowerEdge ZenPack provides support for monitoring Dell PowerEdge Servers (11G and 12G), including blade servers with the Dell PowerEdge M1000e chassis. In-band monitoring is performed via the OpenManage Server Agent (OMSA) using the SNMP API, and supports Dell PowerEdge servers running either the Windows or Linux operating systems.
The Dell PowerEdge ZenPack provides out-of-band monitoring via the Dell iDRAC using the WSMAN interface, regardless of host operating system.
Sample Use Cases
Below are a couple of quick use cases that highlight how the out-of-band monitoring capabilities in the HP ProLiant and Dell PowerEdge ZenPacks can take the guesswork out of knowing what the root cause of a service-impacting event is and help you restore service faster.
Use Case #1 — Temperature Issues, Operating System Not Running/Responding
In this scenario, assume you have an HP ProLiant server in your datacenter with temperature issues. If the operating system on the server is still running, the in-band monitoring capabilities provided in the HP ProLiant ZenPack will notify you of the issue. However, if the operating system is no longer responding or running due to the temperature issue, the out-of-band monitoring capabilities provided in the HP ProLiant ZenPack will still let you know that the server is experiencing a temperature problem. This quickly gives you the information you need to effectively troubleshoot the issue, reducing the amount of time it takes you to identify, isolate, and remediate the issue.
Use Case #2 — Hard Disk Failure Crashes the Operating System
In this scenario, first assume you have several hard drives installed in a Dell PowerEdge chassis, and then next assume that the hard drive that the operating system is running on fails. If you don’t have out-of-band monitoring, you are out of luck. You can get a ping down event, but you probably won’t be able to quickly detect that the root cause of the issue is a hardware-related disk drive failure. However, with the out-of-band monitoring support Zenoss provides, you can quickly see that the hard drive failure is the root cause of the issue and get the right person moving so that the issue can be addressed and the server gets back up and running quickly.
Next Steps
If you have HP ProLiant or Dell PowerEdge servers in your datacenter, make sure that your unified monitoring and event management solution supports both in-band as well as out-of-band monitoring.
If you’re already currently using Zenoss for unified monitoring and event management, make sure you check out the latest versions of our HP ProLiant ZenPack and our Dell PowerEdge ZenPack.
New to Zenoss?
If you are new to Zenoss, check out the following links, which provide more information about Zenoss and the Zenoss Service Dynamics platform:
- Watch a 3-minute demo on Unified Monitoring with Zenoss and see how Zenoss delivers centralized, real-time event management and complete visibility for your entire dynamic and static datacenter environments, with an extraordinarily broad list of support for operating systems, applications, hardware, environmental controls, virtualization, and cloud computing.
- Read Zenoss Service Dynamics: 4 Profiles in Unified Monitoring Success to learn how four different companies are using Zenoss Service Dynamics today to improve their efficiency and productivity and avoid outages.
- Request a free evaluation — Try Zenoss Now! Try out all of the features of Zenoss Service Dynamics inside your own infrastructure along with full support from our world-class support team.
