Providing IT Support – Out-of-Band Management Required

A paraphrase of a post to the SBS2K Yahoo Group.

In our opinion a server should _never_ be deployed without iDRAC Enterprise, iLO Advanced, Intel RMM, or other out-of-band (OOB) device. Period.

Professional grade tools for professionals.

We get:

• KVM, USB, and drive redirection to the server.
• BIOS, Firmware, RAID BIOS, etc access.
• BMC Management and sensor logs/data.
• Power cycle and reset ability (frozen OS).
• At-a-glance view of all firmware versions.

What this does for us:

• Immediate access to the _console_
• No travel time delays ... response is quick.
• No need for client intervention in most cases.

When patching or working on servers we create two connections to the box. One via RD Gateway and one via OOB. It is our preference to have physical access to that box at all times.

With the lack of a speaker on the Dell PERC RAID controllers and Open Manage may or may not e-mailing us about a failed drive we prefer to watch all reboot cycles for any anomalies.

If there is a failure, we can recover that server without any client intervention after the tier 1 tech has done their stuff.

I am sorry, but there is something totally unprofessional about, "I am sorry Mr. Customer, but could you sit at the server and see why I am locked out?" Or having to call a client’s user or contact in before or after business hours to find out why something broke. As IT Professionals we need to set the bar higher than that.

With gas at $1.10/Litre (US Gal = 3.78L, IMP Gal = 4.54L) here and rising at this time _not_ having to travel to client sites for out of scope work is a great thing.

Why?

Because they then _do_ see us when we are there for _positive_ things like rotating their backups or our bi-weekly "how are things?" visit (billable as soon as they say, "Can you fix this?" :*) ).

This aspect more than reinforces our _good_ presence in their business. Thus it strengthens our business relationship with our client contact and their users as we are seen and heard when things are good.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Some Thoughts On Standalone, Cluster Host, and VM Recoverability

The following was our post to the Yahoo SBS2K list that we figured would be good to share here.

The question was: How to install ESXi on a Dell using DRAC on a remote server.

QUOTE

Having looked at all of the responses to virtualizing a server on VMWare or Hyper-V, the following is where we are at in this.

We use Hyper-V exclusively. Why? It is very simple to work with.

For standalone servers we run a GUI install of Windows Server 2008 R2 along with an Intel RMM, iDRAC Advanced, iLO Advanced, etc. This gives us full management of both the hardware and the software so that question is moot. As you have indicated.

For clustering, we utilize Hyper-V Server 2008 R2. Again, it is quite simple to set up (after six months of brain busting investigation since documentation stinks for both s/w and h/w) and manage.

The native tools that come with RSAT or built into Windows Server make management and monitoring fairly straight forward.

Now, as to your dilemma we do the following on both the standalone and Hyper-V Nodes:

1. Transcend 16GB TS16GJFV30 formatted NTFS and active.
• Good read speed which is important. We only write once so no worries there.
2. Copy Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 SP1 OS contents onto the flash. The flash will remain plugged into the server for the life of the box.
• CAVEAT: If Win2K8 R2 GUI then put that on the flash.
3. Place needed OS install ISO copies onto the Flash drive.
4. Place needed drivers and firmware on the flash drive.
5. If using Tier 1 have their bootable DVD in the optical drive.
6. RMM, iDRAC ADV, iLO ADV, etc gives us boot control between Optical, USB Flash, and and RAID array with host OS.

What does this do for us?

We have full control over full host recovery, full guest recovery, and more depending on how the backups are structured. As a rule we do _not_ back up the host. It is faster to rebuild the host and either restore the guests from backup or connect existing VHDs depending on the failure.

RMM/iDRAC: We have tried USB redirection to boot the host OS and install via IP KVM and the process is just too painful. BTDT. Send them a fully configured USB Flash drive.

END QUOTE

What the above requires is at least 2 IP addresses from the ISP. One for the Internet connection used by the internal network and the other for the RMM/DRAC/iLO device that will be used to manage the server or cluster node.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

HP iLO 2 Remote KVM Console Licensing Gotcha

Our primary server product line for our local clients is for the most part Intel branded servers that we build.

For our remote clients we have had a good experience with Dell servers and their server products . . . for the most part.

The migration being done this weekend is for a new client that already has an existing HP ML350 G5 that has SBS 2003 Premium R2 on it and a new HP ML350 G6 that we are installing SBS 2008 onto in Migration Mode.

Now, when it comes to the add-in remote management modules in the Intel (RMM2 or RMM3) and Dell (DRAC 5) the Java driven remote KVM console feature is built-in and enabled out of the box. All we need to do is configure the network setup, security settings, and the users to access the module.

This is what we discovered when we enabled the iLO2 on the ML350 G5 that has the existing SBS 2003 OS on:

And, in the iLO2 console itself:

iLO 2 Feature Not Licensed

Activate this iLO 2 feature by installing an optional license key.

Then, we look around for a bit more information and we find:

iLO 2 License Activation

Licensing iLO 2 Advanced enables true [emphasis ours] Lights-Out Management by enabling many features . . .

. . . that include the virtual KVM console.

Now, given our experience with the Intel Remote Management Module (RMM) and Dell Remote Access Card (DRAC), having the virtual KVM disabled out of the box was not considered as a possibility. If it is in the box, its features should be available . . . at least that was our assumption.

We now need to pick up a couple of the iLO Advanced licenses to enable functionality that we figured should have been enabled out of the box. After all, what is the point of installing the iLO 2 setup if it is not going to be used?

• HP iLO Site

The additional cost?

The cost is on par with the Intel and Dell parts when looking at them as options to the overall server configuration. The gotcha is the need to understand that just because the HP server has the iLO hardware installed does not mean that its features are available out of the box.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

Windows Live Writer