Dell OpenManage IT Assistant provides a central point of access to monitor and manage systems on a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN). By allowing an administrator a comprehensive view across the enterprise, IT Assistant can increase system uptime, automate repetitive tasks, and prevent interruption in critical business operations.
Simplifying System Administration
Using IT Assistant, you can:
Identify the groups of systems that you want to manage remotely.
Consolidate your view of all systems, giving you a central launch point for managing them.
Create alert filters and actions that will automatically notify you when system uptime is affected.
Create customized enterprise-wide reports that provide a detailed inventory of each system.
Create customized tasks that allow you to coordinate configuration management across the entire enterprise, including software update, device control (shutdown/wake up), and command line execution.
Measure the performance of systems on your network.
Identifying the Groups of Systems for Remote Management
IT Assistant performs discovery and status polling, allowing system administrators to identify systems and devices on a network by host name, IP address, or IP subnet range. During a status poll, IT Assistant queries the health, or status, of a system and its components. Information that is gathered during discovery and status polling is displayed in the management console and written to the IT Assistant database. The default database packaged with IT Assistant is the Microsoft® SQL Server 2005 Express. Users who require a more powerful database can use Microsoft SQL 2005 Server or SQL Server 2000.
Consolidating a View of All Your Systems
IT Assistant allows system administrators to take actions on managed systems from the management console. Using IT Assistant, you can create tasks that apply to a single system or each system in a group, create dynamic groups of systems to facilitate management, and conduct inventory on any system. In addition, IT Assistant provides a consolidated launch point for the following Dell systems management applications and devices: Dell OpenManage Server Administrator, Dell OpenManage Array Manager, Remote Access Console, Dell OpenManage Switch Administrator, Digital keyboard/video/mouse (KVM), printers, tapes, storage devices, and Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) devices.
Creating Alert Filters and Actions
You can use IT Assistant to create alert filters to isolate alerts that are of greatest interest to a system administrator. System administrators can then create corresponding alert actions that are triggered when the criteria used to define the alert filter are met. For example, IT Assistant can alert a system administrator when a server fan is in warning or critical state. By creating a filter with a corresponding e-mail action, the administrator is e-mailed if a fan reaches the defined status. The administrator can then act on the notification by using IT Assistant to shut down the system, if necessary, or launch Server Administrator to troubleshoot the problem.
Creating Customized Discovery and Inventory Reports
Using IT Assistant's report wizard, you can create customized reports for any device or group across the enterprise. These reports can contain device inventory information based on a broad selection of attributes. For example, you can create a report that lists details for each add-on card in all systems in a group, including bus speed and width, manufacturer, and slot length and/or number. IT Assistant also provides a collection of pre-formatted reports that gather common information from the enterprise.
Creating Tasks That Enable Configuration Management From a Central Console
IT Assistant also enables you to drive common configuration management tasks across the entire enterprise from a single console. By setting up simple tasks using IT Assistant's wizard-based user interface (UI), you can perform device control tasks (shut down/wake up), software updates, deploy agents, or run command line tasks on any systems in your managed group. IT Assistant allows you to load Dell Update Packages (DUP) and System Update Sets into a central repository, and run a compliance check against systems in the enterprise. The system administrator can then instruct IT Assistant to perform the updates immediately or according to a defined schedule.
NOTE: To perform a software update, the appropriate agent software must be installed on the target device.
For more information on agents, see "Agents on the Systems That You Want to Monitor."
Measuring the Performance of Systems on Your Network
IT Assistant helps you to monitor the performance of a device or a group of devices with supported operating systems over a specified period of time. Performance is monitored with the help of a set of performance counters that you can configure to send alerts when the thresholds are crossed.
Understanding IT Assistant's Components
To understand the other sections of this document, you must understand the following components of IT Assistant:
IT Assistant user interface (UI)
IT Assistant Services Tier (Network Monitoring Service, Connection Service, and database)
Managed system
The IT Assistant UI provides a graphical user view of the information gathered by the IT Assistant Services Tier. This information depicts the overall health and configuration details of each system in the managed group. Systems in the managed group that are being monitored by IT Assistant are referred to as managed systems; the system running the IT Assistant UI is generally called the network management station.
Figure 1-1. IT Assistant User Interface, Services System, and Managed System
NOTE: The numbers in Figure 1-1 are the port numbers used by IT Assistant to communicate with the managed systems.
NOTE: For more information on the ports used by IT Assistant, see the Dell OpenManage Installation and Security
User's Guide.
User Interface
From the IT Assistant UI, you can perform a wide variety of configuration and management tasks, such as specifying systems to discover, creating alert filters and actions, and power-cycling systems.
The IT Assistant UI is based on Sun Microsystems' Java technology. Remote access is through either a Web browser (Internet Explorer, Mozilla, or Firefox) or a terminal service session.
IT Assistant Services
The IT Assistant Services Tier is installed as part of the standard installation. Technically, the Services Tier consists of the Network Monitoring Service, the Connection Service, and the database. In highly customized installations, some users may install their database on a separate system. If you are configuring the simple network management protocol (SNMP) agent on a managed system, trap destinations for the SNMP service must point to the host name or IP address of the system where IT Assistant is installed.
Terminology: Managed System and IT Assistant System
For the purposes of IT Assistant, a managedsystem is a system that has supported instrumentation or agents installed that allow the system to be discovered and polled for status. IT Assistant simplifies system administration of many managed systems by allowing an administrator to monitor them from one management console. For more information on agents, see "Agents on the Systems That You Want to Monitor."
In this guide, the terms IT Assistant system or network management station are used to identify the system on which the IT Assistant software is installed.
Integrated Features
Native Install
The Dell OpenManage systems management software products are installed using the install process native to the operating system.
User Interface Design and Online Help
IT Assistant user interface (UI) includes wizard-based dialogs for performing many standard tasks. IT Assistant version 8.0 menu bar contains new menu options for the new features. Take some time to familiarize yourself with the new layout.
Comprehensive online help is available, both from the Help link at the top right of the IT Assistant window and from context-specific Help buttons within individual dialogs and wizards.
The UI is exclusively Web based, uses Sun Microsystems' Java technology, and also supports Linux systems.
DMI Support
IT Assistant no longer supports the Desktop Management Interface (DMI) protocol. As a result, systems running DMI using Dell OpenManage Server Agent 4.5.1 (and earlier) and Dell OpenManage Client Instrumentation 6.0 (and earlier) will not be discovered by IT Assistant.
Topology View
In the UI, you can select Views→ Topology to see a graphical presentation of the devices in your network. When you double-click the icon for the group you want to view, you move down through the hierarchy. In addition, you can display detailed device information by moving the cursor over each icon. You can also perform tasks on the devices in this view, such as application launch, refresh inventory and status, and troubleshooting.
Dynamic Groups
You can create dynamic groups of devices to help you manage and monitor them more effectively. For more information, see the Group Configuration topic in the Dell OpenManage IT Assistant Online Help.
NOTE: You can re-use the device selection queries created in one module of IT Assistant in other modules as well.
For example, a query created from the search-devices module will also be available when you are creating or
editing a report, an alert filter, or a task.
Application Launch
IT Assistant provides a consolidated launch point for the following Dell systems management applications: Server Administrator, Array Manager, Remote Access Console, Dell OpenManage Switch Administrator, Digital keyboard/video/mouse (KVM), printers, tapes, storage devices, and Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) devices. For more information, see the Application Launch topic in the IT Assistant Online Help.
NOTE: Network Address Translation (NAT) is not a supported configuration on IT Assistant. Therefore, application
launch does not work in conjunction with NAT, even though IT Assistant successfully discovers the managed
systems. You should use IT Assistant to connect only to the IP address with which a system was discovered. Other
IP addresses available on the system may not be accessible to IT Assistant. In many implementations, such as a
server farm or load balancer implementation, the system will be behind a NAT. In such environments, IT Assistant
will fail to connect to Server Administrator running on those systems.
Reporting
IT Assistant offers a customizable reporting feature that gathers data from the SQL Server database. Report results are based on the data gathered in the last discovery and/or inventory cycle.
The report interface wizard is designed to allow you to select actual fields in the IT Assistant database. You can create a report containing information such as:
Details of the hardware devices being managed by IT Assistant, including systems, switches, and storage devices
BIOS, firmware, and driver versions
Field Replaceable Units (FRU) data
Other asset or Cost Of Ownership details
You can also specify the output format, such as HTML, XML, or comma-separated values (CSV). CSV is normally used in a spreadsheet tool, such as Microsoft Excel®. IT Assistant saves the report definitions for later use and retrieval.
To use the IT Assistant report wizard, select Views→ Reports. A full description of the capabilities and steps for using the report wizard is available in the IT Assistant Online Help.
Software Updates
IT Assistant allows you to load Dell Update Packages and System Update Sets into a central repository, then compare the packages to the versions of the software currently running on your enterprise systems. You can then decide whether to update systems that are not in compliance, either immediately or according to a schedule you define.
You can also customize the view of the package information by operating system, system type, component name, and software type.
To use the software update feature, select Manage→ Software Updates. For more information, see the Software Update topic in the IT Assistant Online Help.
Manage Tasks
IT Assistant provides an updated task management functionality that allows you to set up and remotely run certain tasks on all systems in your enterprise, including device control (shutdown and wake up), software update, software deployment, and command line execution.
To use the task management functionality, select Manage→Tasks. For more information, see the Task topic in the IT Assistant Online Help.
Troubleshooting Tool
A graphical troubleshooting tool is available at Tools→ Troubleshooting Tool to diagnose and resolve discovery and configuration problems, including SNMP and Common Information Model (CIM) related issues. You can also use the tool to test device and e-mail connectivity.
For more information, see the IT Assistant Online Help.
User Authentication
For previous users of IT Assistant, IT Assistant now uses operating system or domain-based authentication; the IT Assistant 6.x read/write password is no longer used. For information on the Microsoft Active Directory® schema and how to configure it for use with IT Assistant, including how to install the required snap-in, see the Dell OpenManage Installation and Security User's Guide.
Enhanced Inventory Cycle
IT Assistant collects inventory information, such as software and firmware versions, as well as device-related information about memory, processor, power supply, PCI cards and embedded devices, and storage. For details about the inventory information that IT Assistant collects and stores in its database, see "Add Report — Using the IT Assistant Reporting System" in the online help. For configuring inventory settings, see "Inventory Poll Settings — Configuring IT Assistant to Perform Inventory" in the online help.
Single Sign-On
Single Sign-On on Windows systems is supported. Use Single Sign-On to bypass the login page and directly access IT Assistant by clicking the IT Assistant icon on your desktop. The desktop icon queries the registry to see if the Automatic Logon with current username and password option is enabled in Internet Explorer. If this option is enabled, then Single Sign-On is executed; otherwise, the normal login page will be displayed. For more information on how to set these options, see "Single Sign-On."
User Preferences
User Preferences are independent of user privileges. You can use this feature to customize your view of the device groups. You can access this feature from Tools→ User Preferences. For more information on how to use this feature, see "User Preferences — Customizing the IT Assistant User Interface" in the online help.
This User's Guide is intended to present a high-level view of IT Assistant. Not all features and capabilities are shown in this document. However, each feature is fully explained in the online help available from the IT Assistant UI.
Additionally, the following resources are available on either the Dell Support website at support.dell.com or the documentation CD:
The Dell OpenManage Server Administrator User's Guide documents the features, installation, and services that make up Dell's primary suite of one-to-one server management tools.
The Dell OpenManage Server Administrator SNMP Reference Guide documents the Server Administrator SNMP management information base (MIB). The MIB defines variables that extend the standard MIB to cover the capabilities of systems management agents.
The Dell OpenManage Server Administrator CIM Reference Guide documents the Server Administrator CIM provider, an extension of the standard management object format (MOF) file. The CIM provider MOF documents supported classes of management objects.
The Dell OpenManage Installation and Security User's Guide documents how to install the Dell OpenManage systems management software on your system, as well as how to configure Active Directory and extend the schema for IT Assistant.
You can access the IT Assistant Online Help in two places: either by clicking the Help link at the top right of the browser window, or by clicking the Help button within the dialog or wizard you are using.
