Executive Brief

Simplify IT Management with Dell PowerEdge Servers

a QuinStreet Excutive Brief. © 2012

ServerWatchTM

© 2012, QuinStreet, Inc.

Simplify IT Management with Dell PowerEdge Servers

1

ServerWatchTM

It’s critical that today’s business be

able to provide high-performance

business applications to their users,

secure and reliable storage for

their data and quickly troubleshoot

problems when they do occur.

That’s enough to keep the largest

IT staff occupied throughout the

day, but there’s more to managing

an IT department than keeping the

machines running.

IT has the opportunity to directly

contribute to the bottom line of the

organization by playing a lead role

in developing and implementing

new applications and IT services that

improve business processes. But it can

only take on such a role when the IT

staff has the bandwidth to take part in

these projects and discussion.

Too often, the IT staff at many

businesses spends a majority of

its time on time-consuming low-

value procedures and manual IT

management tasks that keep the

servers, network and storage running

but detract from more strategic IT

initiatives. Better tools for systems

management can deliver automation

and monitoring capabilities that reduce

the amount of time needed manage

the infrastructure and allow more time

for the development and deployment

of new applications and IT services that

help grow the business.

Dell knows that better management of

IT infrastructures can help businesses

innovate and grow. For this reason

Dell’s latest PowerEdge servers — the

12th generation of the PowerEdge line

— has a number of features that make

management easier.

New agent-free management

capabilities in the latest Dell

PowerEdge servers, which are

powered by the new Intel® Xeon®

processor E5-2600 product family, are

designed to eliminate time-consuming

procedures. The integrated Dell

Remote Access Controller (iDRAC)

with Lifecycle Controller helps

automate the manual IT management

tasks that occupy so much valuable

time. The ability to more closely

monitor power and cooling and

simplify the deployment and

provisioning of servers helps create

a more efficient IT environment. The

new Dell OpenManage Power Center

helps gather and display power and

temperature information, making it

easier for administrators to monitor

their server environment for energy

consumption.

Dell’s 12th generation PowerEdge

servers have new and improved

management tools that focus

on server lifecycle management.

They automate processes for

physical, virtual, local and remote

IT environments; use agent-free

and agent-based, in-band and out-

of-band hardware management;

the management features perform

consistently irrespective of operating

systems and hypervisors; and

the management tools integrate

with major third-party systems

management solutions.

Agent-Free Monitoring

The previous versions of Dell’s

iDRAC and Lifecycle Controller

addressed many aspects of systems

© 2012, QuinStreet, Inc.

Simplify IT Management with Dell PowerEdge Servers

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ServerWatchTM

management. In the 12th generation

PowerEdge servers Dell focuses even

more attention on the monitoring

aspect in order to deliver a truly

comprehensive set of capabilities.

All 12th generation PowerEdge

servers have their systems

management tools implemented

on the server motherboards with

their own processor, memory and

communications that are independent

from the rest of the system. This

embedded management means there

are no software agents to install and

maintain, which frees up administrative

and CPU overhead because there’s

no specialized software agents on

the operating system. This agent-

free freedom allows administrators

to monitor and manage servers more

consistently – independent of what

OS they are running. In fact, the

embedded management tools are

not only OS agnostic, the OS doesn’t

need to be running to manage the

system. The embedded tools even

have their own independent network

connection.

The management tools in Dell’s 12th

generation PowerEdge servers can be

activated by a simple software license

key and no longer require a hardware

card, as was the case in the previous

generation of PowerEdge servers.

Customers can easily try out different

tool sets, such as Express or Enterprise

versions, for free for 30 days, and

upgrade from Express to Enterprise

with a simple license key. Dell even

provides a secure customer portal for

storing management toolset license

keys so administrators never have to

worry about losing them.

Agent-free management means

administrators can manage their

12G servers without having to install,

qualify or manage separate agents for

virtual, Linux and Windows operating

systems. There are no compatibility

issues, and no more testing and

distributing of another agent to each

operating system in the data center.

Agent-free management also ensures

that administrators will still receive

email alerts, even if the operating

system goes offline.  

The embedded management features

in Dell’s newest PowerEdge servers

feature several dramatic performance

improvements when compared

to previous generations. The

performance of the iDRAC console

and Lifecycle Controller are optimized

to perform better than ever before.

The same can be said of replacement

part reconfiguration and inventory

collection. The goal is to help Dell

customers make management of their

servers a faster process while at the

same time reducing the potential for

errors.

A more automated and streamlined

management process shouldn’t

detract from security. With Dell’s

newest PowerEdge servers, customers

that decommission or reassign a

server can securely reset the lifecycle

controller configuration status back

to the factory defaults, ensuring

no secure information about their

infrastructure can be accidently passed

along. Dell also added an audit trail

feature that will help customers in

everyday use and, in some cases, with

regulatory reviews.

Dell’s agent-free monitoring reduces

overhead and provides consistent,

OS agnostic, management of the

hardware. Customer can use it to

simplify system driver and firmware

updates while keeping their

production systems behind their

firewall by using Repository Manager

to supply updates to the LifeCycle

controller.

“Agent-free management means administrators can manage their 12G

servers without having to install, qualify or manage separate agents for virtual,

Linux and Windows operating systems“

© 2012, QuinStreet, Inc.

Simplify IT Management with Dell PowerEdge Servers

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One of Dell’s goals in the 12th

generation PowerEdge servers is

to use embedded management to

improve all aspects of the server

lifecycle.

In the deployment stage of the server

lifecycle, embedded management

helps administrators quickly configure

system settings and deploy the

operating system — with the latest

drivers already resident on the

LifeCycle Controller.

In the update phase of the lifecycle,

administrators can use the embedded

management features, along with

the Dell update packages (DUP) from

Dell.com, to ensure they are installing

the most current BIOS, firmware and

drivers quickly and safely.

The monitor phase of the server

lifecycle is easier for the IT staff

because there is no agent to install

and maintain in the server.

For the maintain phase of the server

lifecycle, auto-reconfiguration of

replacement parts, including the

motherboard, helps simplify and

streamline the maintenance of

an infrastructure. The embedded

systems management feature gives

administrators the ability to update

to the previous configuration settings

– including the previous firmware

version. To help improve the audit

trail, Dell enhanced the logging

capability and even added ability for

its customers to create custom log

entries.

OpenManage Hardware Management Console

The 12th generation Dell PowerEdge

servers also introduce OpenManage

Essentials, a hardware management

console that reduces the complexity

of basic management tasks. It is

simple to install, low touch, easy to

maintain and optimized for use by IT

generalists, who can use it to monitor

and maintain server, storage and

networking devices.

Dell OpenManage delivers

comprehensive integration with

the popular VMware vCenter and

Microsoft System Center consoles,

helping further simplify the

management of PowerEdge servers

that host virtual machines. Dell is also

introducing OpenManage Power

Center, which when paired with Dell

PowerEdge servers supporting Intel®

Node Manager technology, delivers

a complete, easy to deploy and use

solution to manage data center power

and thermals.

Another Dell product administrators

can use to make infrastructure

management easier is Advanced

Infrastructure Manager (AIM),

a rapid workload mobility and

recovery management solution across

heterogeneous, physical and virtual

data centers.

It helps administrators simplify the

management of heterogeneous

hypervisors, servers, storage devices

and networks, all while easing their

migration toward an efficient and

virtualization-ready data center. It does

© 2012, QuinStreet, Inc.

Simplify IT Management with Dell PowerEdge Servers

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this by managing and automating

physical and virtual server workloads,

as well as their storage access and

network connectivity, from a single

console. It helps repurpose servers

without making physical changes,

and allows administrators to avoid

rip -and-replace server upgrades by

building on existing investments as

they add new infrastructure. AIM helps

reduce power, cooling and operational

costs through server consolidation and

improved asset utilization.

With the help of AIM, administrators

can deploy servers from pallet to

production in minutes and quickly

change server workloads.

AIM can also automatically and

intelligently redeploy workloads across

the infrastructure when hardware fails,

allowing IT departments to reduce

the number of redundant servers

required. It also offers workload

mobility from physical to virtual servers

or from virtual to physical servers.

Administrators can move workloads

seamlessly, making it easier for IT

departments increase the number of

virtualized workloads.

Conclusion

Time-consuming and manual

processes in today’s data centers are

causing businesses to devote some

of their best and brightest minds to

keeping the IT infrastructure running

instead of helping the business grow.

Increased automation, monitoring

and management of the infrastructure

can help businesses leverage their IT

employees for other tasks.

Dell’s introduction of its 12th

generation PowerEdge servers

includes a number of features that

help monitor and manage the server

infrastructure. Agent-less embedded

management makes managing

PowerEdge servers throughout the

server lifecycle easier than ever before.

A new OpenManage Essentials

hardware management console can

integrate with popular management

tools like Microsoft System Center and

VMware vCenter. Dell’s AIM software

also helps administrators rapidly

deploy and provision servers and

manage workloads.