Hello. Today we'll take a look at OpenManage Server Enterprise and the Server Initiated
Discovery feature. In order to access the 'Server Initiated Discovery' section
we will need to click on 'Monitor' and then 'Server Initiated Discovery'.
The list will be empty if this feature has not been enabled before.
If you have any concerns or questions about how to go through this process
you can click on the question mark on the top right corner,
and it will take you to the section of the user's guide that talks about server initiated discovery.
For our process we will need to go into the hypervisor where the virtual machine
for OpenManage Enterprise is running. This can be either VMware or Hyper-V. Next we'll
need to click on 'Configure Server Initiated Discovery' and press the space bar to enable it.
Once we click apply we'll be prompted for the password for the OpenManage Enterprise appliance.
Once the 'Configure Server Initiated Discovery' feature has been enabled,
we will need to go back to the OpenManage Enterprise appliance.
There's additional steps that need to take place in order to
add servers into this list. If we notice the user guide points out that we need to
have configuration enabled on DNS for OpenManage Enterprise.
Next I will go to my DNS server and make sure that those settings applied.
In order to do this we will need to drill down to our domain, right click on it,
click on 'Properties' and ensure the 'Dynamic updates' are set to 'Nonsecure and secure'.
Changing the setting to 'Nonsecure and secure' dynamic updates enables OpenManage Enterprise to
allow to edit DNS to add the entries that it needs for server initiated discovery.
As we can see the entries for my OpenManage
Enterprise appliance have been added under my tcp settings.
This is the DNS entry for my OpenManage Enterprise appliance.
If the setting was missing the OpenManage Enterprise user guide
has information on how to manually update DNS throughout those entries.
The next step in the process is to go to our iDRAC that we want to discover. The
setting for 'Server Initiated Discovery' can be found under 'iDRAC Settings', 'Connectivity',
'Network' and then 'iDRAC Auto Discovery'. By default the discovery setting is set to on, and
to refresh every 24 hours. If we want to refresh it sooner we can toggle this setting on and off.
So far we have done three things. One, enable the server initiated
discovery feature in the text user interface for OpenManage Enterprise.
The second thing was making sure that the DNS entries were added into our DNS server.
Third we have toggled in iDRAC to make sure that server initiated discovery is set to on.
The next step in this process is to provide the passwords for the iDRACs that we want to discover.
This will allow OpenManage Enterprise to fully add those devices into the
discovery list. We can do so by clicking on 'Import' and 'Download sample CSV file'.
When we open the sample csv file we'll notice that it has three fields.
One for the service tag, one for the username and one for the password. We can add the service tags
for the address that we want to discover, along with the corresponding username and passwords.
Once we have done this we can go back to the OpenManage Enterprise appliance, click on
'Import' and then upload the service tag file. On my list there are four service tags listed.
now we are waiting for the iDRACs to send the packet to OpenManage Enterprise
so that the device can be fully discovered.
Once the iDRAC makes an announcement the process will be fully automatic.
In this case we have an iDRAC that already sent the packet to OpenManage Enterprise.
As you can see the job is already submitted for discovery.
You can also filter through the different statuses by clicking on the
drop down menu on the far right. You can see the iDRACs that were announced,
the iDRACs that we have added credentials for, the iDRACs that were discovered,
the jobs that were submitted for discovery, and systems that are ready for discovery.
The systems that are ready for discovery will be iDRACs that have been
announced but don't have any credentials added to OpenManage Enterprise yet.
Once this process completes we'll be able to see these devices under the devices menu.