Users Guide

About Dell Lifecycle Controller Integration for

Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager

Dell Lifecycle Controller Integration (DLCI) for Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) enables hardware

configuration, provides a solution to simplify and improve the process of firmware updates, and hypervisor deployment on Dell

servers. This plug-in uses the remote deployment feature of the Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller (iDRAC) with Lifecycle

Controller (LC), providing a seamless user experience. You can leverage Dell’s value additions through Microsoft System Center

Consoles to manage virtualized environments.

For information about Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager, see Microsoft documentation.

What’s new in this release

The features for this release are as follows:

• Export inventory in CSV format — after comparing the servers inventories against the update source you can export the

comparison report to CSV file.

• Part replacement — restore the firmware version, or configuration, or both on the new server component.

• Collect and View LC log messages— export, view, download to CSV, and search the LC log messages.

• Jobs and activity logs — improved presentation of jobs and activity logs for better user experience.

• Deploy Windows Server 2016 —support for deploying Windows Server 2016.

• 64–bit Dell Update Packages (DUPs) — support for firmware version update using 64–bit DUPs.

• Support for System Center 2016 Virtual Machine Manager(SC2016 VMM) — you can install DLCI for SCVMM on SC2016

VMM.

Existing features

With DLCI for SCVMM, you can continue to do the following:

• Update sources — create a repository by using DRM, or by connecting to an FTP site.

– Integration with DRM — export the system inventory information from DLCI for SCVMM into DRM and use DRM to

prepare a repository.

– FTP — connect to Dell FTP (local or online), and get the latest Dell Online catalogs.

– HTTP — support for Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) type of update source.

• Test connection — validating the location of update source and the credentials before creating the update source.

• Update groups — group the servers for creating, managing, and performing firmware updates on predefined and custom

update groups.

• Polling and notifications — configure notifications to receive alerts when new catalogs are available in update source.

• Protection vaults — location to save system configuration profiles.

• Export server profiles — including firmware images on components such as Basic Input Output System (BIOS), Redundant

Array of Independent Disks (RAID), Network Interface Controller (NIC), integrated Dell Remote Access Controller (iDRAC), LC,

and so on, to an internal or external location.

• Import server profiles — either retaining or excluding the current RAID settings for the same server or server groups when the

existing server profile is corrupt.

• Filters — are used to display information based on the criteria selected in the Maintenance Center.