About Dell EMC OpenManage Integration with Microsoft System Center (OMIMSSC) for System Center Operations Manager (SCOM)

Microsoft System Center—Operations Manager (SCOM) enables you to monitor devices and applications in your data center. Dell EMC provides management packs on the OpenManage Integration with Microsoft System Center (OMIMSSC) for Operations Manager (SCOM) appliance, by using which, administrators can manage their Microsoft and Dell EMC devices by using a single interface: The Microsoft System Center—Operations Manager (SCOM) console. The Dell EMC OMIMSSC appliance integrates with Microsoft SCOM to discover, inventory, monitor health (and generate performance metrics), and receive alerts of PowerEdge servers and rack workstations, Modular Infrastructure (including PowerEdge MX7000), and network switches. The OMIMSSC appliance offers the agent-free monitoring of Dell EMC Servers and Rack Workstations—through iDRAC using WS-Man and iSM using WMI, Dell EMC Chassis, and Dell EMC Networking Switches. You can use the legacy management packs to perform agent-based monitoring of PowerEdge servers and rack workstations by using an OMSA agent.

OMIMSSC is a VM that is hosted on one of the following:

  • Hyper-V using a VHD file.
  • VMware ESXi using an OVA file.

OMIMSSC is an appliance-based solution available in a ZIP file package. There are two supported file formats of the appliance that can be extracted from the following ZIP packages:

  • OMIMSSC_<version>_SCOM.vhd_<revision>.zip, where version is the release version of the OMIMSSC appliance and revision is the build revision number, can be extracted to a VHD file format.
  • OMIMSSC_<version>_SCOM.ova_<revision>.zip, where version is the release version of the OMIMSSC appliance and revision is the build revision number, can be extracted to an OVA file format.

Both the above compressed packages contain:

  • VHD file or OVA file.
  • Documentation folder containing the readme.txt file.

The Dell EMC OMIMSSC appliance is based on CentOS and interacts with the Dell EMC devices. The supported protocols for communication with the devices are:

  • Web Services-Management (WS-Man)
  • Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)
  • Redfish

OMIMSSC architecture overview

Figure 1. Architecture of the OMIMSSC appliance


Architecture of the OMIMSSC appliance

Key features of OMIMSSC for SCOM

Table 1. Key features with descriptions of OMIMSSC for SCOM

Features

Description

License center

Manage OMIMSSC licenses from the OMIMSSC Admin Portal.

Dell EMC Servers and Rack Workstation (Licensed) monitoring feature

Support for the following by using the Dell EMC OpenManage Integration Dashboard on the SCOM console:

  • License-based discovery and monitoring of iDRAC9-based PowerEdge Servers, 12th generation, and 13th generation PowerEdge Servers, PowerVault servers, supported Dell Precision Racks, hardware monitoring of Dell EMC branded or Dell EMC OEM Ready servers and Dell EMC Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct Ready nodes through:
    • iDRAC using WS-MAN
    • iDRAC access using Host operating system
    • iSM using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)
  • Discovery and monitoring of iDRAC9-based PowerEdge Servers, 12th generation, and 13th generation PowerEdge Servers, PowerVault servers, supported Dell Precision Racks, hardware monitoring of Dell EMC branded or Dell EMC OEM Ready servers and Dell EMC Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct Ready nodes using iDRAC.
  • Discovery and monitoring of iDRAC9-based PowerEdge Servers, 12th generation, and 13th generation PowerEdge Servers using iSM. For the complete list of supported servers, see Supported platforms in the iDRAC Service Module Installation Guide on the support site.
  • SNMP traps for devices that are discovered through WS-Man of Servers and Rack Workstation Monitoring (Licensed) feature.

Dell EMC Chassis monitoring feature

Support for the following by using the Dell EMC OpenManage Integration Dashboard on the SCOM console:

  • Discovery and monitoring of Dell EMC Chassis, and Dell OEM Ready chassis devices.
  • Discovery of server modules and chassis slot summary for CMC chassis.
  • SNMP traps for Chassis devices.

Dell EMC Network Switch monitoring feature

Support for the following by using the Dell EMC OpenManage Integration Dashboard on the SCOM console:

  • Discovery and monitoring of Dell EMC Network Switches devices.
  • SNMP traps for Dell EMC Network Switch devices.

DRAC monitoring feature is deprecated for iDRAC9-based PowerEdge servers. Dell Technologies recommends to use the agent-free Dell EMC Servers and Rack Workstation (Licensed) monitoring feature to monitor iDRAC9-based PowerEdge servers.

Advantages of the OMIMSSC appliance for SCOM

  • Simplifies data center operations by integrating OMIMSSC with the SCOM console.
  • Uses agent-free monitoring architecture for PowerEdge servers.
  • Simplifies device monitoring by using a management dashboard.
  • Reduces operations cost, increase effectiveness, and enable administrators to perform value-added tasks.
  • Scaling up the monitoring capabilities by configuring Dell EMC Alert Relay Servers (previously known as Proxy Management Servers) in the SCOM Management Group.
  • Can be deployed on either Hyper-V or ESXi by using VHD or OVA file formats.