User's Manual

Managing Virtual Resources
5-60 Active System Manager User Guide, Release 7.0
Managing Virtual Resources
This section introduces you to the Operation Center view and gives you an insight into dynamic hierarchy
of resources displayed in the Operation Center view. This section also familiarizes you with the
navigational aspects of Operation Center view, and the possible operations available per object type in the
Operation Center view.
Note The Resource Managers are third-party vendors or equipment specific management agents, that are
used to manage physical and /or virtual resources. The examples of Resource Manager include
VMware vCenter and Cisco UCS Manager.
Note To perform Advanced Discovery and display the current hierarchy of resources in the Operation
Center view, you are required to integrate the Active System Manager software with the Resource
Manager.
The following topics in this section describe Operation Center in detail:
• Understanding the Operation Center View
• Accessing the Operation Center View
• Managing the Resource Manager Using the Operation Center View
• Editing Data Flow Values
Understanding the Operation Center View
The Operation Center view is a Active System Manager feature that displays the dynamic view of
datacenter, consisting of virtualized and configurable resources. Using integrated Advanced Discovery
mechanism, the Active System Manager software discovers and displays the current state of resources in
the Operation Center view. The Active System Manager software retrieves information from
vendor-specific Resource Managers and consolidates it, to display the visual representation of a consistent
layout of resources in a hierarchial manner.
The Operation Center view facilitates maximum flexibility in tracking the consistent layout of a virtual
infrastructure in the Resource Manager. To facilitate things further, the Operation Center view displays the
current status of resources at regular intervals by scheduling the discovery operation.
Note There may be a lag between the resource status in Resource Managers, and the hierarchy of
resources reflected in the Operation Center view, in case of changed status of resources in the
Resource Manager.
The Active System Manager software uses the power of Resource Adapters (RAs) to retrieve and display
the hierarchical structure of resources on the Operation Center view. The RAs establish a connection with
Resource Managers (for example: VMware vCenter, Cisco UCS Manager) using a set of open Application
Programming Interfaces (APIs). These APIs communicate with Resource Managers to retrieve the nested
relationships of resources, and reflect or replicate their corresponding consistent layout in the Operation
Center view; for example: for the VMware vCenter, the Operation Center view comprises of objects
discovered, such as Datacenter, Cluster, and ESX hosts in the cluster, along with the datastores and virtual