Overview of Dell AIM IP for Opalis

Dell has developed an Integration Pack (IP) for Microsoft System Center Opalis to communicate and manage the Dell AIM (Advanced Infrastructure Management) environment.

The goal of this integration between Dell AIM and Microsoft System Center Opalis is to combine the workflow automation capabilities offered by Opalis and the datacenter management capabilities of Dell AIM.

Dell AIM and Microsoft System Center Opalis integration essentially exposes the Dell AIM web interfaces as activities in the System Center Opalis environment. The integration pack itself is based on the System Center Opalis QIK framework.

The Integration Pack version 1.0 supports Dell AIM version 3.4.1 and System Center Opalis version 6.3.

The Integration Pack exposes the interfaces as Create, Read, Update, and Delete activities.

Overview of Integration Pack Activities:

Image showing Dell AIM IP activities available in Opalis Client console.

Each activity has a set of inputs, their associated set of filters, and the results that are published on the Opalis data bus.

The Add Persona activity is used in a policy to add a new Persona to the Dell AIM environment.

The Add Object activity is used in a policy to add new objects to the Dell AIM environment such as a Network, Server Pool, or VMRack.

The Add Relationship activity is used in a policy to add a new child object to an existing Dell AIM object such as a Network Connection or Image to a Persona.

The Get Object activity is used in a policy to retrieve objects of a specified type from the Dell AIM environment such as retrieving all of the Networks, Hosts, or VMRacks.

The Get Persona activity is used in a policy to retrieve information about the personas in the Dell AIM environment.

The Get Relationship activity is used in a policy to retrieve child objects of a certain type from a specified parent such as the Images assigned to a Persona or the Switches assigned to a Rack.

The Maintenance Mode activity is used in a policy to set the maintenance mode of a host, persona, or VMRack.

The Remove Object activity is used in a policy to remove an object from the Dell AIM environment such as a Network, Switch, or VMRack.

The Remove Persona activity is used in a policy to remove a persona from the Dell AIM environment.

The Run Operation activity is used in a policy to invoke an AimWS
Method, for example locking a persona to the server it has been assigned to or disabling a network connection.

The Start activity is used in a policy to start a persona or VMRack that is currently stopped.

The Stop activity is used in a policy to stop persona or VMRack that is currently running.

The Update Object activity is used in a policy to update existing objects in the Dell AIM environment, as in changing the Name of a Server Pool.

The Update Persona activity is used in a policy to update an existing persona, as in enabling a health monitor and setting a health monitor hostname.

The Dell AIM Integration Pack for Microsoft System Center is available for download.

Used guide for this IP available for download at:

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/SOFTWARE/OIPAIM/

More details on workflow creations using Dell AIM IP activities will be posted soon.

Stay Tuned...