Users Guide

About OpenManage Essentials

OpenManage Essentials is a hardware management application that provides a comprehensive view of

Dell systems, devices, and components in the enterprise’s network. With OpenManage Essentials, a web-

based and one‑to‑many systems management application for Dell systems and other devices, you can:

• Discover and inventory the system.

• Monitor the health of the system.

• View and manage system alerts.

• Perform system updates and remote tasks.

• View hardware inventory and compliance reports.

• Deploy or re-provision a server or chassis.

• Manage the configuration baseline of a server or chassis.

• Manage the virtual I/O identity of a server.

What is New in This Release

• Ability to manage the virtual I/O identity of a server (stateless deployment).

• Ability to automatically discover the blade servers and IOA switches in a chassis while discovering the

chassis using the Chassis (CMC) Discovery — All Components device type filter within the Guided

Wizard.

• Added support for deploying Dell OEM servers and managing the configuration baseline.

• Pop-up notifications to indicate the completion of a task.

• Ability to preview the attributes of a device configuration template that will not be applied

successfully.

• Availability of the system update task wizard that allows you to select non-compliant systems and the

applicable update packages.

• Availability of processor information and iDRAC performance reports.

• Support for upgrade from OpenManage Essentials version 1.3, 2.0, or 2.0.1 to version 2.1.

• Ability to update the inventory collector component through the Dell Solutions portal.

• Ability to select systems running OMSA as targets for the firmware and driver inventory task.

• Ability to automatically purge downloaded packages based on your preference.

• Enhancements:

– Reorganization of links on the Settings portal.

– Grouping of NAS Clusters and HA Clusters device groups in the device tree.

– Grouping of reports on the Reports portal.

– Availability of response action messages for certain incoming alerts.

– Addition of a button that opens the context-sensitive menu in the device tree nodes and other

portals that support the tree-view format.