February 21, 2011 at 10:12Practice of using Onboard Administrator in BladeSystem c3000
Today we want to talk about Onboard Administrator - one of the most important components of BladeSystem c3000 shelves. This module focuses on the power, cooling and switching management of the HP BladeSystem c3000 shelves and all devices connected to them. It is used for basic administration of servers and switches installed in a shelf; it provides initial shelf setup, operational management and access to component consoles. In addition, using the Onboard Administrator, you can notify the administrator of abnormal events via e-mail, SNMP, or by displaying messages on the LCD built-in to the shelf.
Although the Onboard Administrator is not well known beyond the HP blade server compared to the iLO (integrated lights-out) console for standard ML / DL series servers, it is a very useful tool for the continuous management and monitoring of the HP BladeSystem shelf. The module is connected to the LCD display on the outside of the shelf, which displays messages about the status of installed devices and warnings about problems in operation.
We hope this post will remind about Onboard Administrator to those server administrators who do not use it fully enough, or will suggest a new way to use it. For a life example of using this module, we turned to Cloud One Technical Director Andrei Goremulte.
“At the back of the shelf are two Ethernet ports, each of which is connected to its own Onboard Administrator module. One of the modules is in active mode, the second - in standby mode. The modules have the exact same configuration, and if the active module fails, the backup module starts working at the same IP address, redirecting commands to its IP address. If necessary, each of the modules can even reflash a “partner”.
Using Onboard Administrator, we get access to iLO and management console for all modules of active network equipment, and, accordingly, full-fledged remote management of all modules, blade servers installed in the shelf. Turning on / off, rebooting, starting, uninstalling and installing operating systems and applications - all these functions can be controlled remotely.
At the beginning of the commissioning of the new BladeSystem c3000 shelf, the Onboard Administrator performs the initial configuration of network devices and configures the blade servers for the further deployment of operating systems and hypervisors. After that, Onboard Administrator is mainly used to notify the administrator by email. In real time, the temperature of all active equipment of the shelf, the volume of electricity consumption, the operating modes of the power supplies are monitored (while unused power supplies can be turned off so that the remaining units work with higher efficiency when the load is incomplete).
And here are the screenshots of the web interface:
Although the Onboard Administrator is not well known beyond the HP blade server compared to the iLO (integrated lights-out) console for standard ML / DL series servers, it is a very useful tool for the continuous management and monitoring of the HP BladeSystem shelf. The module is connected to the LCD display on the outside of the shelf, which displays messages about the status of installed devices and warnings about problems in operation.
We hope this post will remind about Onboard Administrator to those server administrators who do not use it fully enough, or will suggest a new way to use it. For a life example of using this module, we turned to Cloud One Technical Director Andrei Goremulte.
“At the back of the shelf are two Ethernet ports, each of which is connected to its own Onboard Administrator module. One of the modules is in active mode, the second - in standby mode. The modules have the exact same configuration, and if the active module fails, the backup module starts working at the same IP address, redirecting commands to its IP address. If necessary, each of the modules can even reflash a “partner”.
Using Onboard Administrator, we get access to iLO and management console for all modules of active network equipment, and, accordingly, full-fledged remote management of all modules, blade servers installed in the shelf. Turning on / off, rebooting, starting, uninstalling and installing operating systems and applications - all these functions can be controlled remotely.
At the beginning of the commissioning of the new BladeSystem c3000 shelf, the Onboard Administrator performs the initial configuration of network devices and configures the blade servers for the further deployment of operating systems and hypervisors. After that, Onboard Administrator is mainly used to notify the administrator by email. In real time, the temperature of all active equipment of the shelf, the volume of electricity consumption, the operating modes of the power supplies are monitored (while unused power supplies can be turned off so that the remaining units work with higher efficiency when the load is incomplete).
And here are the screenshots of the web interface: