The Dell Community has contributed: 9392 ideas | promoted 642697 times | 71723 comments

How IdeaStorm Works:

Post Promote Discuss See
Operating Systems - Multiboot Comments | Operating Systems - Multiboot Ideas | Servers and Storage Comments | Servers and Storage Ideas | Software Comments | Software Ideas | Simplify IT Comments | Simplify IT Ideas
0

Make the DRAC the OpenManage platform

0 points posted to Operating Systems - Multiboot, Servers and Storage, Software, Simplify IT by kgraham 11/14/07

To summarize several of the IdeaStorm posts on OpenMange -- "OMG, Dell has to support OpenManage on my Xen virtualized BeOS under Ubuntu!!".

Instead, please don't support my pet operating system or anyone else's. Make the DRAC the OpenManage platform of choice.

Presently, a $300 DRAC is little more than a glorified KVM and power interface and acts as a negative incentive for Dell to promote wider adoption of IPMI for basic functionality. To get a rich SNMP MIB and hardware monitoring functionality, the answer today is to install an additional software bundle that runs under the host OS. Very little of current OpenManage functionality actually necessitates a booted OS -- almost all of the information is available via the BMC/SMBus.

Further, failed disks, thermal shutdown, DIMM failure, DMI information, etc are all things that really should be available out-of-band and lights-out. Yes, the DTMF can and (eventually?) will deliver these things, but wrapping it up into a chassis-contained multiprotcol (SNMP/HTTP/Telnet) interface is never going to happen. However, Dell already has the platform and is already dedicating the resources to make it happen, these two simply need to come together.

Walk away from all of the OS support issues with OpenManage -- driver games, packaging, and the grossly inflated cost of the software lifecycle it incurs. You own the DRAC end-to-end without user-imposed complications. Make one of the clearly identifiable "premium", Dell-specific options on the PowerEdge line stand out!

For anyone skeptical of this due to the lack of consistency in the between DRAC generations or concerns with current quality, I'm quite confident that if it were prioritized as Dell's "Premier Enterprise Management Platform" this would change.

jervis961
11/14/07		 perhaps I need a dictionary or translation for this idea?
premcv
11/14/07		 Its the Dell Raid Array Controller or something like that.
jervis961
11/14/07		 OK makes sense
jorge
11/14/07		 If they can't do No-OS DRAC is probably a century away.
junkman2
11/22/07		 Yes please. We have several machines running a specific linux version that in it's default form does not allow the OMCA agents to be installed, and if we modify things enough for it to work we lose a) manufacturer support of the software and b) the ability to rapidly reload a known OS. If more of the hardware state, specifically the hard disk status, could be exposed via the DRAC then we would not need to install agents. The DRAC does already allow for the fans, temperature, power supply status etc, why not the Hard disk.
kgraham
11/26/07		 @jorge -- no comparison. DRAC remains whatever platform and OS Dell and Agilent want. OpenManage gets kicked off the server altogether and runs only on the DRAC.
jperseo
Mar 24		 So, Basically, you're suggesting that the DRAC have an embedded O/S on the card to act totally independent of the hardware ? In this way, you'd treat the DRAC much like a print server so that you could have independant monitoring, remote power on/off , SNMP and other functions ( such as Pre-Loading BIOS Upgrades , Licence control / validation , additional bandwidth / usage shaping , etc ) . Perhaps you'd like a side of Dell remote support or advertising with that ? Perhaps a remote kill command for those that fail to keep up on their leasing payments ?
kgraham
Apr 21		 @jperseo -- it already does have an embedded OS independent of the rest of the server and depending on the version it already support HTTP, HTTPS, Telnet, SSH and a very limited SNMP MIB. The point here is for Dell to leverage the DRAC as the host platform (which they can control in their own release/testing cycle, etc) for OpenManage, rather than piggybacking on the server's operating system which we customers want to do all kinds of terrible things to and then go whining to Dell that they don't support (or support well enough).

Most all of the functionality the DRAC provides today is addressed through IPMI 1.5/2.0; shifting OpenManage onto it reduces cost and complexity in maintaining OpenManage while maintaining a clear value-add for the DRAC and improving overall system management.
Please log in to post a comment
recently promoted by: