Server Management Software Benefits

This section describes the benefits of the following server management software tools:

• Oracle Integrated Lights Out Manager

• Oracle Hardware Management Pack

• Oracle Hardware Installation Assistant

Oracle Integrated Lights Out Manager

Oracle Integrated Lights Out Manager (Oracle ILOM) is system management firmware that is preinstalled on an embedded service processor on Oracle's x86-based servers and SPARC-based servers. Oracle ILOM enables you to actively manage and monitor components in your server. Using Oracle ILOM, you can remotely manage and monitor the server as if you were using a locally attached keyboard, monitor, and mouse, regardless of the state of the host system. The Oracle ILOM firmware automatically initializes when standby power is applied to the server.

Oracle ILOM firmware allows you to choose either a full-featured browser-based web interface or an equivalent command-line interface (CLI).

With Oracle ILOM, you can:

• View graphical and text-based consoles for the host.

• View Oracle ILOM using a web-based interface or a command-line interface.

• Monitor the current status of server sensors and indicators.

• Monitor server hardware errors and faults as they occur.

• Send events using SNMP traps or email alerts when faults occur.

• Remotely control the power state of the server.

• Configure the server hardware.

The service processor (SP) has a dedicated Ethernet port. The SP runs its own Oracle ILOM embedded operating system and provides out-of-band management capability. In addition, you can access Oracle ILOM from the server's host operating system (Oracle Solaris, Oracle Linux, other variants of Linux, or Windows).

You can also configure Oracle ILOM to integrate with other management tools in your data center. You can easily integrate the Oracle ILOM SNMP interface and IPMI management interfaces with other management tools and processes that you might have working already with your servers, such as Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center. For more information about Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center, go to:

http://www.oracle.com/us/products/enterprise-manager/044497.html

In addition, you can integrate Oracle ILOM with several enterprise management, third-party tools, such as CA Unicenter, HP OpenView Operations, BMC Patrol, and IBM Tivoli. For more information about which tools are supported, go to:

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/servermgmt/tech/isv-hardware-connectors/index.html

Oracle Hardware Management Pack

Oracle Hardware Management Pack is available for your server, and for many other Oracle x86-based servers and some SPARC-based servers. Oracle Hardware Management Pack features two components: an SNMP monitoring agent and a family of cross-operating system command-line interface tools (CLI Tools) for managing your servers.

With the Hardware Management Agent SNMP Plugins, you can use SNMP to monitor Oracle servers and server modules in your data center with the advantage of not having to connect to two management points, the host and Oracle ILOM. This functionality enables you to use a single IP address (the host's IP) to monitor multiple servers and server modules.

Hardware Management Agent SNMP Plugins run on the host operating system of Oracle servers. The SNMP Plugins use the Oracle Hardware Storage Access Libraries to communicate with the service processor. Information about the current state of the server is fetched automatically by the Hardware Management Agent.

You can use the Oracle Server CLI Tools to configure Oracle servers. The CLI Tools work with Oracle Solaris, Oracle Linux, Oracle VM, other variants of Linux, and Windows operating systems. The following table describes the tasks that you can perform using the CLI Tools.

Oracle Hardware Installation Assistant

The Oracle Hardware Installation Assistant application is a provisioning tool for Oracle's x86 servers. The application guides you through server setup and maintenance by providing a single interface that facilitates server installation, configuration, maintenance, and recovery tasks.

The features and benefits of the Oracle Hardware Installation Assistant include:

• Supports multiple boot media options. Launch the Oracle Hardware Installation Assistant application from either a local drive attached to the server (CD/DVD or USB flash drive), a remote redirected network drive (virtual CD/DVD drive or ISO image), or an image available on your PXE network environment.

• Guides you through operating system installation and provides Oracle-certified, server-specific and configuration-specific device drivers for optional accessory cards and other system hardware.

• Guides you through RAID configuration for servers that contain an integrated LSI disk controller. Support is for RAID 0 and RAID 1 integrated mirror or integrated mirror enhanced (striping). Assisted RAID 1 configuration is also available (beginning with Oracle Hardware Installation Assistant 2.4) for LSI SAS-2 controllers (926x, 9280).

• Provides a specific set of service processor and Oracle ILOM configuration capabilities.

  • Enables management of Oracle ILOM user account settings and configuration of network settings, system clock, and system identification information.

  • Allows BIOS-level boot device priority configuration and next boot device selection.

• Contains firmware update capabilities for:

  • System BIOS and Oracle ILOM firmware

  • HBA firmware

  • Expander firmware