Users Guide

Using Extensions
The extensions available in SupportAssist Enterprise enable you to extend the SupportAssist Enterprise capability to many
devices. You can use the extensions to inventory and add devices that are managed by a systems management console such as
Dell OpenManage Essentials or Microsoft System Center Operations Manager. The extensions also enable you to optimize the
performance of SupportAssist Enterprise by distributing the workload of collecting and uploading system information to remote
systems.
Topics:
• Types of extensions
• Support for setting up adapter or Remote Collector
• Getting started with inventorying devices managed by OpenManage Essentials or Microsoft System Center Operations
Manager
• Adapters
• Remote Collectors
Types of extensions
Two types of extensions are available in SupportAssist Enterprise:
● Adapter — An application that acts as an interface between SupportAssist Enterprise and a systems management console.
The adapter enables SupportAssist Enterprise to inventory and retrieve alerts from supported devices that are managed
by a systems management console, instead of adding each device individually. After inventorying and adding the devices,
SupportAssist Enterprise can monitor the devices for hardware issues and also collect and upload system information to Dell.
Two types of adapters available in SupportAssist Enterprise:
○ OpenManage Essentials adapter — For inventorying devices managed by OpenManage Essentials
○ System Center Operations Manager adapter — For inventorying devices managed by System Center Operations
Manager
● Remote Collector — A remote instance of SupportAssist Enterprise that collects and uploads system information from
devices within a specific IP address range. The Remote Collector enables SupportAssist Enterprise to distribute the workload
of collecting and uploading system information to a remote system. Typically, collection and upload of system information
from all your devices is performed by the server where SupportAssist Enterprise is installed. When you set up a Remote
Collector on a remote system, collection and upload of system information from devices within the specified IP address
ranges is performed by the remote system. To ensure optimal performance of SupportAssist Enterprise, Dell recommends
that you set up a separate Remote Collector for every 3,500 devices.
Support for setting up adapter or Remote Collector
The capability to set up an adapter or Remote Collector is available only when SupportAssist Enterprise is installed on a
Windows operating system. The following tables provide a summary of the capability to set up an adapter or Remote Collector
depending on the operating system.
Table 10. Support for setting up an adapter
Operating system where
SupportAssist Enterprise is installed
Support for setting up an adapter
on a local or remote server running
Windows
Support for setting up an adapter
on a local or remote server running
Linux
Windows Yes No
Linux No No
NOTE: For the devices that you can inventory in SupportAssist Enterprise by setting up an adapter, see the list of devices
in the SupportAssist Enterprise Version 1.1 Support Matrix at https://www.Dell.com/ServiceabilityTools.
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