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Identity Pools in OpenManage Enterprise
16 Advanced Server Configuration in Dell EMC OpenManage Enterprise 3.0
3 Identity Pools in OpenManage Enterprise
This section provides detailed information about Identity Pools and their structure.
3.1 Purpose and usage of Identity Pools in OpenManage Enterprise
OpenManage Enterprise uses Identity Pools to manage the set of values that can be used as virtual identities
for discovered devices. OpenManage Enterprise controls the assignment of virtual identity values, selecting
values for individual deployments from pre-defined ranges of possible values. This allows the customer to
control the set of values which can be used for identities, and means that the customer doesn’t have to enter
all needed identity values with every deployment request, or remember which values have or have not been
used. Identity Pools make configuration deployment and migration much easier to manage.
Identity Pools are used in conjunction with the template deployment operations. They provide sets of values
that can be used for virtual identity attributes for deployment.
After a template is created, an Identity Pool may be associated with it. Doing this specifies the Identity Pool to
use to get identity values whenever the template is deployed to a target device. The same Identity Pool can
be associated with (used by) any number of templates. Only one Identity Pool can be associated with a
template.
Note— An Identity Pool can be associated with a template by clicking the Edit Network button on the
Configuration  Deploy page.
An Identity Pool does not have to be associated with each template. However, if a template doesn’t have an
Identity Pool associated with it, OpenManage Enterprise cannot assign a virtual identity to target devices
when the template is deployed. If a virtual identity cannot be assigned to a device, OpenManage Enterprise
cannot perform some operations that would otherwise be supported (such as profile creation and migration).
If an Identity Pool is specified for a template, OpenManage Enterprise automatically uses virtual identities for
management operations involving that template.
To initiate deployment of a template to a target device, you select a template (on the Configuration 
Deploy page) and click the Deploy Template button. A template can be deployed whether or not an Identity
Pool has been specified for it. In other words, templates can be deployed with or without a virtual identity.
However, as mentioned above, if a template is deployed without a virtual identity, some configuration
management operations cannot be done.
One of the steps in the Deploy Template wizard, when a template has an Identity Pool specified for it, is to
“Assign Identities”. This step reserves values from the associated Identity Pool for all virtual identity attributes
needed by the template.
Each template will have specific virtual identity needs, based on its configuration. For example, one template
may have iSCSI configured. Therefore, it will require appropriate virtual identities for iSCSI operations.
Another template may not have iSCSI configured, but may have FCoE configured. Therefore, it will require
virtual identities for FCoE operations but not for iSCSI operations.