Dell/Vmware - VIB/iDrac/OME/OMSA -- how to tie them together?

Question

I have vSphere Server with 2 Dell hosts (hypervisors)

A: is a 710, with iDrac6 essentials. Vanilla VMware Esxi 5.1 install B: is a 720 with iDrac7 enterprise. Dell customized VMware Esxi 5.5 install

I'd like VMware to have more visibility into Hardware health on both machines and have the firmware stating and patching available for "B".

I'm swimming in a bit of acronym soup here as it were. Finding a lot of cross over and explaitions of combinations that are either conflicting or confusing.

Can someone spell it out for me a bit? As I understand it

i - the VIB is what I might want to install on "A" to make it more like "B" that is the difference between the customized dell esxi and teh vanilla one is the capabilities of the VIB. I think. ii - i THINK OMSA is what you might install if you lack iDrac? iii - Which leaves me, with OME. I believe I should install OME on a system somewhere to act as a proxy between vSPhere and iDrac?

Thanks!

Answer 1

I'm not sure if I can help you much because we're not using Dell servers. But it looks like I can at least help you with the acronym VIB: VIB stands for vSphere Installation Bundle. It's basically a software packaging format like RPM.

Dell Custom ESXi distribution should contain at least one, but quite probably several, additional VIBs with drivers and stuff. (As far as I know, manufacturer's custom ESXi distributions differ from the vanilla distribution only by adding some VIBs.) If you want to know what VIBs are missing on host A: You should be able to list the installed VIBs with esxcli software vib list on A and B and compare both outputs to see what's missing. You should be able to get them from Dell.

You can also try to upgrade your 5.1 host A to 5.5 with the Dell Custom ESXi distribution. It should install the additional VIBs along with ESXi 5.5.

edit: Maybe comparing the VIB lists isn't too good an idea. They might differ because of the different ESXi versions. Maybe your best bet is to upgrade your 5.1 host to 5.5 with the Dell Custom ESXi distribution, at least if it's on the HCL.

Answer 2

Install the Dell Custom ESXi distribution or just add the Dell .VIBs to an existing install. That will provide you with Manufacturer-specific hardware awareness and visibility inside of vCenter.

In your vCenter configuration, add the requisite alerts for the "Host Hardware Health". That's all I monitor, since it's a bit of a catch-all for host health conditions.