Using Agent Management for Operating Systems

An agent managed operating system has an Agent Controller or a specialized virtualization, or VC, Agent Controller installed to gather information for the Enterprise Controller. The VC Agent Controller is for virtualization technology, such as zones and logical domains.

When you install the Agent Controller on the operating system, the following actions occur:

• The software registers the Agent Controller with the Enterprise Controller. It takes at least five (5) minutes for the software to register the Agent Controller. After registered, you can update the operating system.

• The software sends you a notification when it has enabled the update function for the operating system.

• The Agent Controller checks the inventory of patches and packages and creates the System Catalog. The catalog lists the patches and packages, and the versions that are currently installed on the operating system.

Virtualization Agent Controllers

In addition to the default Agent Controllers, Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center uses specialized virtualization Agent Controllers called VC Agent Controllers for Oracle VM Server and Oracle Solaris Zone assets.

You can install the agent during discovery, or at any time after discovery. You have the following agent management options:

• Oracle VM Server for SPARC Virtualization Controller Agent: Manages the logical domains that are running on the Control Domain. The Oracle VM Server, Control Domain and operating system are reflected in the UI. Using this agent enables full monitoring and management actions for the Oracle VM Server system.

• Zones Virtualization Controller Agent: Manages the zones that are running on the logical domains. The global zone is reflected in the UI. Using this agent enables full zone monitoring and management actions.

• Agentlessly: Limited management functionality is available with this method. Information is gathered by using SSH connection between the logical domains and the Proxy Controller.

For robust management, use the OVM Server for SPARC Virtualization Controller Agent to manage the domains. The agent runs on the Control Domain and monitors the configuration and reflects any changes on the configuration in its copy of the metadata.

Functionality With and Without Agent Controllers

The Agent Controller provides the most robust management features. However, you can manage your assets without using an Agent Controller. To gather information on an agentlessly managed operating system, the Proxy Controller uses SSH to perform certain tasks and periodically check on the operating system.

Some features are not available when the operating system is managed agentlessly. Table 6-3 shows the information that are available for each management type.

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Table 6-3 Information Available for Agent Managed and Agentlessly Managed Assets

Tab or Feature	Agent Managed	Agentlessly Managed
Dashboard	Yes	Yes
Summary	Yes	Yes
Libraries	Yes	No
Storage	Yes	No
Utilization	Yes	Yes
Analytics	Yes	Limited
Virtualization Analytics for Oracle VM Server	Yes, if the guest is agent-managed	No
Virtualization Analytics for Oracle Solaris 10 Zones	Yes, if the global zone is agent-managed or if the non-global zone is agent-managed.	No
Networks	Yes	No
Incidents	Yes	Yes
Monitoring	Yes	Yes
Charts	Yes	Yes
Reports	Yes	No
System Catalogs	Yes	Oracle Solaris 11: Yes Oracle Solaris 8-10, Linux, Windows: No
Terminal	Yes	No
Jobs	Yes	Yes
Configuration	Yes	Yes
OS update	Yes	Oracle Solaris 11, Windows: Yes Oracle Solaris 8-10, Linux: No
OS provisioning	Yes	Yes
Zone management: boot, shutdown, halt, delete, edit zone config, get zone console	Yes	Yes
Zone management: create, clone, migrate, add a filesystem to a zone, remove a filesystem from a zone, attach and detach networks, add storage to a zone	Yes	No

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Switching Between Agent Controllers or Agent and Agentless

This section describes the procedure to change the management mode.

The current management mode of an operating system and the type of Agent Controller appears on the Dashboard for the operating system, as shown in Figure 6-6.

Figure 6-6 Agent Managed

Description of "Figure 6-6 Agent Managed"

You can use the following methods to change the agent management mode:

• Unmanage the asset, then rediscover the operating system using a profile with the alternative mode.

• Use the Switch Management Access feature.

The Switch Management feature enables you to move back and forth from agentlessly managed to agent managed or to switch the type of agent.

When the operating system is agent managed and you use this action, the software removes the Agent Controller and changes the operating system to agentless. Select or create new credentials for the Proxy Controller to use to obtain information from the asset.

To switch between different types of Agent Controllers, such as changing from a default Agent Controller and a virtualization Agent Controller, you must use Management Access to unmanage and then manage again. When you manage the asset, you are prompted to choose the type of Agent Controller when it is not apparent to Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center which agent you want to install.

Using Switch Management Access

Procedure to use switch management process.

1. Expand Assets in the Navigation pane.
2. Expand the Assets tree, then select the operating system.

   The current management status appears in the Dashboard tab.

3. Click Switch Management Access in the Actions pane.

   Figure 6-7 Switch Management Access

   
   Description of "Figure 6-7 Switch Management Access"
4. Add or select SNMPv3 credentials and SSH credentials for the system, then click Finish.

   • (Optional) To create a new set of credentials, click New and complete the Create Credentials Wizard, then click OK.

   • (Optional) To select from a list of existing credentials, click Select, highlight the credentials from the list of available credentials, then click OK.

     Figure 6-8 Switch Management Access Credentials

     
     Description of "Figure 6-8 Switch Management Access Credentials"