HP Insight Control for VMware vCenter Installation Guide

Server Module for vCenter features
Insight Control for vCenter provides HP Insight Control hardware management capabilities to
administrators, enabling comprehensive monitoring, remote control, and power optimization from
the VMware vCenter Server console. Insight Control for vCenter consists of the core Insight Control
capabilities with a plug-in for the vCenter Server environment that adds many of the Insight Control
features into the vCenter Server console, including the following:
• Combined physical and virtual view—From a single pane of glass, monitor host systems.
• Integrated troubleshooting—Receive pre-failure and failure alerts on HP server components
and launch HP management tools, such as Systems Insight Manager, iLO, Virtual Connect
Manager, and Onboard Administrator, from the vCenter console.
• End-to-end network monitoring—Visually trace and monitor your network end-to-end, from
the host to the network modules connected in your domain.
This feature is available with the vSphere Client on blade servers in a Virtual Connect
environment only.
• Remote control—Provide the capability to launch into remote management tools.
• Proactive power management—Get the most out of your existing power envelope by
comprehending and proactively managing power for hosts and pools of VMs across hosts.
This feature is supported on clusters configured with DPM.
• Role-based security—Assign permission to Insight Control for vCenter Single-sign on using the
VMware vCenter server to parcel the level of access and control. For more information, see
the HP Insight Control for VMware vCenter Server User Guide or online help.
• Stability—Monitor and deploy firmware on HP ProLiant ESXi hosts that have the HP software
bundle installed (firmware deployment is supported with the vSphere Clientonly).
• Deployment of ESX/ESXi hosts on bare-metal ProLiant servers directly from VMware
vCenter—Use the HP Insight Control Deployment Wizard available on the home page of the
vSphere Client. The deployment wizard is not supported on the vSphere Web Client.
• Automated host networking configuration—automatically configure host networking based
on networks available in the Virtual Connect profile. This feature is available only on the
vSphere Web Client on blade servers in a Virtual Connect environment.
In addition to these tasks, when Insight Control for vCenter is installed with Insight Control, you
have the full capabilities of both tools to manage your VMware environment. For more information
about Insight Control capabilities, see the Insight Control documentation on the HP website:
http://www.hp.com/go/insightcontrol/docs
Storage Module for vCenter features
The Storage Module for vCenter enhances VMware functionality by providing details about the
disks presented to the virtual environment. This improved visibility helps administrators make
better-informed decisions when designing, deploying, maintaining, and troubleshooting a virtual
environment. For example, an administrator can use the information provided by the Storage
Module for vCenter to do the following:
• Ensure that mission-critical VMs reside on storage provided by a HP StoreVirtual storage array
meeting established replication requirements.
• Ensure that a production database application is located on the HP EVA RAID 1 storage
volumes that are replicated to a remote datacenter.
• Preserve storage resources when placing a temporary test database on HP MSA NRAID
storage volumes.
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