Deploy and Manage Dell Management Suite Infrastructure
Posted: December 12, 2013 Filed under: Dell, VMware, Windows | Tags: dell, dell management plug-in, dell management plugin, dell ome, esxi snmp, ome, open manage, open manage essentials, plug-in, plugin, repository manager, rm, snmp, ws-man 5 CommentsBy request, this post is a reproduction of an internal operational document I handed over for the environment in which I installed it.
Overview
The Dell Management Infrastructure consists of two dedicated VMs in addition to relying on vCenter and a database. The two dedicated VMs run three separate Dell applications in a Windows Server 2008 R2 VM and a Linux Virtual Appliance. The three applications are Dell OpenManage (OME), Dell Repository Manager (RM), and the Dell Management Plug-in (DMP) Virtual Appliance itself. An overview of the infrastructure is below.
Dell Management Plug-in with DNS Aliases
Posted: October 3, 2012 Filed under: Dell, VMware | Tags: dell, dell management, dell management plug-in, dell management plugin, dell plug-in, dell plugin, management, plug-in, plugin, vcenter plug-in, vcenter plugin Leave a commentA tricky configuration piece of the Dell Management Plug-in that I discovered the hard way was that you must log in to vCenter via the vSphere Client with the same name or IP address with which you used to register vCenter with the Dell Management Plug-in Virtual Appliance. And I mean *exactly* the same, perhaps even with an FQDN. You can’t register vCenter in the Dell virtual appliance with an IP address and then turn around and log in to the vSphere Client with your usual server name or, in my case, a DNS alias or CNAME.
As you can see above, I’ve created a CNAME record for the first of my vCenters that are in a Linked-Mode group. I’ve named it vCenter. This is how I log into the vSphere Client – by just typing vCenter in the Name/IP address field. When I first registered the Dell plug-in via the virtual appliance, I registered the first vCenter server by its FQDN – let’s call it, myvcenter.company.net. Going to the Dell plug-in in the vSphere Client you get a nice error stating that the Dell Management Plug-in cannot access vCenter. Showing details gives you nothing, but don’t despair quite yet.