Users Guide

Using Extensions
The extensions that are 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 EMC
OpenManage Essentials, Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM), or OpenManage Enterprise. 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 adding devices managed by systems management consoles
• Adapters overview
• Remote Collectors overview
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 EMC. Two types of adapters
available in SupportAssist Enterprise:
○ OpenManage Essentials adapter—to inventory devices managed by OpenManage Essentials
○ System Center Operations Manager adapter—to inventory devices managed by System Center Operations Manager
○ OpenManage Enterprise adapter—to inventory devices managed by OpenManage Enterprise
• Remote Collector — A remote instance of SupportAssist Enterprise that collects and uploads system information from devices that
are present 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, it is recommended 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 14. 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 Yes (For OpenManage Enterprise only)
Linux No Yes (For OpenManage Enterprise only)
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 2.0.50 Support Matrix at https://www.dell.com/serviceabilitytools.
7
Using Extensions 63