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2.13 Deploy Template
Deploy Template refers to taking the system configuration defined in a template and applying that
configuration to one or more target devices. As discussed earlier, when a template is created, it may contain
configuration settings for specific functional areas (such as iDRAC, BIOS, and RAID) or a full system
configuration. In most cases, deployment involves full system configurations. Each template may be used as
often as desired for configuration deployment to target devices.
A device must be discovered by OpenManage Enterprise before it can be specified as a deployment target.
If a Template does not have an Identity Pool associated with it, only non-identity attributes will get sent to the
specified target devices. Without a virtual identity, stateless functions supported by OpenManage Enterprise
(such as identity migration) cannot be executed.
If the template does have an Identity Pool associated with it, then unused identities get reserved from the
Identity Pool (as needed) and included in the attributes that get deployed to a target server. A separate set of
unique identities is reserved for each specified target device (if the template includes identity attributes).
In OpenManage Enterprise, the Deploy Template wizard presents a UI for setting up a Deploy Template
request. Setting up a Deploy Template request is a complex process. The Deploy Template wizard uses
several different APIs to support all that needs to be done. It uses the following APIs:
• Assign Identities
This API is only used when the selected template has an Identity Pool associated with it. It reserves
(rather than assigns) identities from the template’s associated Identity Pool. The types and numbers of
identities that need to be reserved depends on the template’s BIOS, NIC, and FC configuration. For
example, Ethernet MAC addresses are usually required for each NIC port or partition, and certain iSCSI
identities (such as MAC address, and Initiator name and IP address) are needed when iSCSI is set up for
access or booting.
Calling the API from within the Deploy Template wizard provides the customer with early feedback
regarding identity availability and reservations. Reserved identity values are also displayed in the UI.
• Get Assigned Identities and Boot Options
This API gets all the identity attributes reserved for the current deployment request (e.g., via the Assign
Identities API discussed above). And it also returns Boot Options, as discussed here.
For most non-identity attributes, the same value that is, the value in the template) is sent to every target
device. However, when a template configuration specifies that a port is to be used for booting (for
example, iSCSI boot is enabled), certain deployment attributes may need to be set differently for different
target devices. This set of attributes is referred to as Boot Options.
The Deploy Template wizard invokes this API to get identity reservations and a list of any boot option
attributes applicable to the Template specified in the wizard. Sometimes, there aren’t any boot options; it
just depends on the Template configuration. When boot options exist, required values may be set
separately in the UI for each target device.