Designed for basic hardware management and advanced enterprise management, the Dell™ Management Console powered by Altiris™ from Symantec™ offers a single view into the deployment, inventory, and monitoring of IT infrastructures. This discussion focuses on traps and alerts that can be defined and added to the Dell Management Console as well as performance and health monitoring of enterprise systems.

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Chat Transcript

DELL-ScottH Thanks to everyone for joining us again this week. Today we will continue our discussion from two weeks ago on the Dell Management Console. If you missed that chat you can view the transcript here: www.delltechcenter.com/page/04-28-09+dmc+installation+and+configuration
DELL-ScottH Today we have the same experts joining us from the Dell Management Console team. Please introduce yourselves; don't be shy
DELL-ScottH Hey Todd!
VirtualTodd Hello all!
DELL-ScottH And a reminder that this chat is recorded, and you can view the transcript tomorrow, so don't worry about writing down URLs
DELL-ScottH Welcome Dennis!
Dell-Rob_C Rob is here. I brought Gabe
Dell-KongY Hi Todd and Roger
Dell_-_Gabe My background is the monitor solution among other things, so I am expecting some questions focused at me today
DELL-ScottH You can connect with all the Dell Management Console experts over on the Dell Community DMC Group: http://en.community.dell.com/groups/dell_management_console/default.aspx
DELL-ScottH Cool, good to know, Gabe
Dell-KongY Welcome Depping!
DELL-ScottH Duncan!
depping Hey guys
DELL-ScottH Today's topic will cover the monitoring and traps portion of Dell Management Console. The Dell Management Console team has several demos that will help you get up and going quickly: http://en.community.dell.com/groups/dell_management_console/media/default.aspx
DELL-ScottH Also, Rob has posted an excellent tool to help with SNMP troubleshooting: http://en.community.dell.com/groups/dell_management_console/blog/archive/2009/05/11/new-snmp-troubleshooting-tool.aspx because it's hard to monitor and trap if they aren't connected :-)
Dell_-_Gabe The demos and online docs cover some of the most common user scenarios
DELL-ScottH This paper from Gabe is most excellent in helping: www.dell.com/downloads/global/solutions/configuring_event_actions_in_dell_management_console_v1.0.pdf
DELL-ScottH Welcome Rkb. Use Action, Recent Room History to catch up
Dell_-_Gabe These solutions are still highly dependent on the protocol layer, so it is important to have a good foundation there as well
Dell-Rob_C Gabe, I'd like to start with a question to you. Can you please give a quick overview of the difference between the SNMP traps and monitor alerts that show up in the Event Console in Dell Management Console?
Dell_-_Gabe Ah, good one
DELL-ScottH Welcome Brady. Use Action, Recent Room History to catch up
Dell_-_Gabe The basic difference is the source of the trap, SNMP versus the monitor solution. The monitor solution alert is generated when a rule criteria has been triggered and is not specific to protocol
DELL-ScottH Welcome Derek. Use Action, Recent Room History to catch up
Dell_-_Gabe Also the monitor alert will have relatively little information in the description versus an SNMP trap. Basically, the monitor alert is just telling you which tule was triggered for what device
erson Should I be afraid of any Star Trek spoilers if I read the backlog? :)
DELL-ScottH @erson, no :-)
Dell_-_Gabe Both of these can be used to trigger tasks such as generating an e-mail, but they are different interfaces
RKB It was all Mr. Kahn
Dell-Rob_C Okay, so if you want to get the detailed trap information…
Dell_-_Gabe There is more detail on that in the white paper
DELL-ScottH Welcome, Andy, Will, and Tasksgeek!
Dell-Rob_C Then you have to configure your server, printer, etc. to send the devices’ SNMP traps to the Dell Management Console box
DELL-ScottH Use Action, Recent Room History to catch up
nadine @erson, earth is actually a giant computer run by mice
Dell_-_Gabe For detailed trap information you want to create a task to generate an e-mail from the SNMP trap
DELL-ScottH Can you guys explain when/if I would want the full-blown agent installed on a system for monitoring...what can I get with just SNMP, and when do I need the agent?
Dell_-_Gabe Then you can use the alert variables to include this description in the e-mail text if desired
Dell_-_Gabe Scotth, all the Dell monitoring solution is agentless meaning...
erson nadine, I knew it!
Dell_-_Gabe For health it does require the OMSA agent to be installed on the box. For performance WMI must be enabled, but requires no special agent otherwise
Dell-Rob_C So to clarify...
Dell_-_Gabe The Altiris agent is not required in either case
Dell-Rob_C When we say "monitoring" in Dell Management Console it can mean 1) health and 2) performance. Health monitor for servers uses OMSA if you use SNMP. Performance monitor for servers uses WMI counters. Right Gabe?
Dell_-_Gabe Yes, but…
erson The link to the specification sheet isn't working. The correct URL is: www.dell.com/downloads/global/solutions/dell%20management%20console%20spec%20sheet.pdf?c=ma&l=ar&s=gen
Dell_-_Gabe Health also uses OMSA WMI if SNMP is not available
DELL-ScottH What page is that link on Erson?
erson www.delltechcenter.com/page/05-12-09+dell+management+console+traps+and+monitoring
erson The start page for this chat
Dell-Rob_C Has anyone had any luck getting SNMP traps in the Dell Management Console?
Grimsrud-Dell Yes
Dell-Rob_C Or played around with event actions? (Send an e-mail on a trap, run a task, etc.?)
Dell_-_Gabe Other questions on monitoring and alerting?
Dell-Rob_C Thanks, Grimsrud...server only, or other devices too?
Grimsrud-Dell I have two EMC CX, one MD3000, 1 NX1950
Dell-Rob_C Nice sample of storage :)
Grimsrud-Dell And CMC, PowerEdge M600, PowerEdge M905, PowerEdge M805 and a Hyper-V cluster on two PowerEdge R805s
Dell-Rob_C Great collection
erson Nice
Dell-Rob_C Gabe, can you discuss enabling the performance policies, etc.?
Grimsrud-Dell What I can’t get working is the ESXi 3 U4 with WS-man
Dell_-_Gabe Health is enabled by default. Performance is not, as this policy is much larger in scope and has a much more aggressive poll interval to enable...
DELL-ScottH @erson, link fixed
Dell_-_Gabe Navigate to the performance monitoring policy on the monitoring and alerting portal, toggle the setting to On, save, and either force a client policy update or this will take effect in roughly an hour
Dell-Rob_C Grimsrud, have a look at FAQ 13.6, and we can talk later offline. Thanks: http://en.community.dell.com/groups/dell_management_console/wiki/dmc-faq.aspx
Dell_-_Gabe What is a client policy update?
DELL-ScottH @grimsrud, have you seen this thread? www.delltechcenter.com/thread/2788322/how+do+you+configure+esxi+3.5+update+4+to+communicate+with+dmc
DELL-ScottH Or did you start that thread? :-)
erson Is there a Web page that points to all the various places that have all the information about Dell Management Console? Feels like there are bits and pieces all over the place
Dell_-_Gabe This means that we are forcing a policy change on the agent on the notification server. By default it checks for these changes once per hour; otherwise, it can be forced immediately. This is all documented very specifically in the user guide
Dell-Rob_C Erson: www.delltechcenter.com/page/dell+management+console
Dell-Rob_C It is a good starting point. Everything clicks through from there
erson Rob_c, thanks
Dell-Rob_C Thanks, Gabe...so I can use performance monitor to track something like CPU utilization on my target server for example? What other metrics?
Dell_-_Gabe Yes. There are 18 counters total
Dell-Rob_C And I can set it up so that if the CPU goes over 90 percent on my box I can send an alert and make it go critical
Dell_-_Gabe CPU %, kernel utilization time, % processor utilization time, % user utilization time, logical disk, logical disk free space, logical disk I/O per second, memory, % page file usage, available memory pages I/O per second, network incoming bytes/sec, incoming packets/sec, outgoing bytes/sec, outgoing packets/sec, physical disk average access time, physical disk I/O per second, system context switches/sec, and processor queue length
Dell_-_Gabe Some of those were categories
Dell-Rob_C Okay, and a number of these metrics work on both Linux and Windows managed nodes
Dell_-_Gabe My default performance has two thresholds: warning and critical for each device
Dell_-_Gabe Metrics are the same for Windows and Linux. Note that Linux performance is agent based since it does not obviously support WMI, that is, it does require the Symantec agent
Dell-Rob_C Yep, okay, thanks. What other questions out there folks?
DELL-ScottH FYI, here's the health and monitoring demo: http://en.community.dell.com/groups/dell_management_console/media/p/19449279.aspx
Dell_-_Gabe Also, for health, the Dell Management Console supports six states up from the typical three, though Dell does not use all of these: Normal, Undetermined, Informational, Warning, Major, Critical. Although you can view the health in real time in the performance viewer; it is recommended to use the group health view, found on the main Dell portal
Dell-Rob_C Yeah, the group health view is a Web part on the Dell Management Console portal page. It is a roll-up health status for all of your devices...bet Gabe was gonna say that :)
Dell_-_Gabe Another point I'd like to mention is the connection state. Connection state shows our ability (or inability) to communicate with the device, but it doesn't necessarily mean the device is powered off
DELL-ScottH Ahhhhk! Somebody just took a picture of us in our lab
Dell_-_Gabe It could be network disconnect or a protocol failure, for example
DELL-ScottH Dang these glass walls
Dell-Rob_C And the connection state can be seen in the Resource Manager, that is, double-click a server or device and the Resource Manager window opens up. You can see the connection state there
Dell_-_Gabe The resource manager gives a more specific view of the agent with the problem, but still does not show the exact problem. For this, you would need to use the application launch feature to launch OMSA in context of the server and drill down to see the exact failure. Or, if you are receiving traps, the traps would tell you the specific failure
Grimsrud-Dell Gabe, Do I need WMI activated in the connection profile for the server, or is SNMP read enough for performance monitoring?
erson I need to get my hands on Dell Management Console a lot more. Feels like I've just scratched the surface so far. Need to review this chat later on. Thanks for all the good information
erson /me gets back to semi-silent idling
Dell_-_Gabe WMI is required for performance monitoring of Windows servers, so, yes, it must be enabled in the connection profile
Dell-Rob_C @erson, thanks. Also have a look at some of the movies in the media section and on the DVD. They may be helpful
Dell_-_Gabe Also, it must be enabled at the time the server is discovered, or you must rediscover it when this is added
Grimsrud-Dell Okay, thanks
d_glynn Beyond servers what can be monitored?
erson Rob_c, when my new Dell hardware arrives I will lock my door and send out an e-mail that I'm unavailable for a couple of weeks because of testing, and I will for sure dedicate some time to get Dell Management Console up and running. :)
Dell-Rob_C Perfect!
erson d_glynn, support for UPS and PDUS are on its way apparently
Dell-Rob_C Gabe, you want to answer d_glynn’s question?
erson Is there a "supported hardware" list?
Dell_-_Gabe All Dell devices can be monitored for health
bigrob82 Is Dell Management Console replacing IT Assistant?
grealish Hi Guys, are we talking about SNMP support mainly in Dell Management Console?
erson bigrob82, yes. Upgrade is a possibility
Dell_-_Gabe Servers can additionally monitor performance; also all Dell devices are monitored for connection state
Dell-Rob_C Yes, Dell Management Console will replace IT Assistant at some point. Not many new features (if any) are going into IT Assistant at the moment, just minor revs
erson I might have asked this before, but will Dell Management Console replace Dell Client Manager 3.0?
d_glynn Thanks
Dell_-_Gabe Grealish, most devices just support SNMP today
Dell-Rob_C But we also support IPMI, WMI, WS-man (for embedded ESX)
grealish Okay cool
Dell-Rob_C Also protocols for EMC and PowerVault MD arrays
Dell_-_Gabe Servers support more: SNMP, WMI (Windows only), IPMI…
Dell-Rob_C Also, guys, you may want to check out some of the nice reports for alerts. Go to the report page and dig down to the alert section. There are nice reports like "most common alerts," "servers with most alerts," that kind of thing
Dell_-_Gabe Erson, they are more like sister products, right Rob? DMC = servers; DCM = clients
Dell-Rob_C Ya
erson Okay
Dell-Rob_C The Dell Management Console install media includes the latest version of DCM as well. You can install them at the same time, and you get menu items for both in the console
erson Yeah, I noticed that—good move
grealish So can Dell Management Console extend further, say like in vCenter you can connect over a SOAP interface to build third-party applications, could Dell Management Console do the same as a middleware?
Dell-Rob_C If you go to the task portal page, you can see that you are able to create lots of different tasks. One of the tasks is a Web service task. So if you have a Web service you want to connect to, you should try it out...just point to the WSDL. Also, if you have a third-party tool that can call Web services, all of the Dell Management Console reports can be exposed as a Web service call. So you can even write your own small Java or .Net Web service call to a Dell Management Console report and get the data back as XML and format yourself
grealish Cool! As I'm interested in maybe fetching power stats from a PowerEdge M1000e blade system for reporting
Dell-Rob_C Interesting...(Gabe’s working on power features in our next release as we speak!)
Grimsrud-Dell Is there any trick to completely delete a discovered server if you want to rediscover it?
grealish Neat! Have you RC or beta released this? We have a PowerEdge M1000e on tests, and next week will be installing ESX v4
Dell-Rob_C You should be able to right-click, delete, and re-discover
grealish So will be doing some DPM tests
Dell-Rob_C Just don't delete your Dell Management Console box :)
Dell-Rob_C @grealish, Ha! nope no beta
Dell_-_Gabe It is pretty early still on it
grealish Well I like the remote BIOS configuration, etc.
Dell-Rob_C Great! we're going to try to add more of that kind of thing
erson Doh, DPM isn't VMware DPM in my world; got a bit stumped there
grealish Sorry ;)
grealish Is there support for EqualLogic SANs on the plan?
erson Grealish, not your fault; I blame the unrestricted use of acronyms :)
erson Grealish, already supported
Dell-Rob_C There is an EqualLogic white paper today, but first-class support is targeted for this year
DELL-ScottH White paper for EqualLogic monitoring in Dell Management Console: http://en.community.dell.com/groups/dell_management_console/media/p/19453844.aspx
erson Great, will need that. What white paper did Rob_c talk about that was published today?
grealish Okay, bit of a long-shot question, but say I have my Dell Management Console server with two interfaces, one in management, and the other general (for access); does a client connect to the Dell Management Console server have to have any KVM IP devices routable?
Dell-Rob_C http://en.community.dell.com/groups/dell_management_console/media/p/19484157.aspx
Dell-Rob_C The purpose of this tool is to test the SNMP network connection from a Dell Management Console server (aka Management Station) to another server running OMSA (aka Managed Node or target server). The tool is a troubleshooting tool. Its purpose is to help answer the question: "Why can't Dell Management Console discover my server?" or "Why can't Dell Management Console properly classify my server as a Dell Computer?" This tool is non-destructive
Grimsrud-Dell Gabe, which WMI connection should I use for performance monitoring; does it matter? Runtime or a domain admin?
Dell_-_Gabe Rob just hit a key point, for monitoring to work the devices must be classified as "Dell" devices
Dell-Rob_C @grealish, not sure I understand
Dell_-_Gabe @grimsrud, actually I believe WMI is enabled in the default connection profile so you can look at that as well
grealish What I'm wondering is, does accessing the Dell Management Console have to also be able to see the servers it monitors?
Dell_-_Gabe In my configuration, looks like I am using domain credentials and do not have the runtime option checked—main thing is the credentials must match :)
Dell-Rob_C I think you can configure what a user can see pretty well in the security settings. Maybe post out to the discussion forum so we can dig a bit deeper: http://en.community.dell.com/groups/dell_management_console/forum/default.aspx
Dell_-_Gabe Grealish, the Dell Management Console server would have to be able to see the servers it is monitoring with the same credentials for the available protocols, but Dell Management Console does have different user permission settings, so different users only have access to certain things
DELL-ScottH Keep the conversation going if needed, I know some people have to drop off, as we are at the end of the hour. Just wanted to make sure to thank everyone for joining, and use that link that Rob just posted to connect with all these great Dell Management Console experts!
Dell-Rob_C Thanks guys. Have to drop off. See you on the forum
Dell_-_Gabe I have to drop off as well. Thanks all!
DELL-ScottH Thanks everyone! Todd, how's the testing going?
Dell-KongY Thanks everyone! Awesome Dell Management Console session!
grealish Do you know if they have such chat sessions over in Europe?
erson Dang, that baboon scared me
DELL-ScottH Is the time difference killing you?
erson 23:05 here in Sweden
DELL-ScottH But you are hard core, Erson :-)
grealish Not really, just I find a lack of such things here in Switzerland ;) 23.06 here too ;)
DELL-ScottH Kong just said if you pay for our trip, we will do a live session there!
erson We have a lot of workshops here in Sweden
Dell-KongY Absolutely :)
grealish We had one last Monday :)
erson We had the last workshop at the top floor of this building: www.everyoneweb.es/wa/datafilesproyecto/turning.jpg
grealish Class!
erson For sure :) two top floors are for conferences; the rest are "usual" apartments
DELL-ScottH That is a very cool building
erson Turning Torso in Malmö, Sweden
Dell-KongY Definitely an awesome design
grealish I'd like to say we had our workshop day only meters from the largest waterfall in Europe ;) Very close to Copenhagen, where there is a large-ish Dell office. Okay, I'm off. Good night, thanks for the information