Product data

Chapter 5. System management 91
5.4 Hierarchical management
Hierarchical management is a feature available in IBM Systems Director that
enables you to configure one IBM Systems Director to be a control point over
other IBM Systems Directors. Hierarchical management enables an IBM
Systems Director to act as a
global server that can discover and manage one or
more IBM Systems Director, referred to as
domain servers. The global server
also manages the data and status for the resources under each domain server
by aggregating the management data from each domain server. The global
server can be used for cross-domain and cross-appliance administration in large
data centers. In hierarchical management, systems managed by the domain
servers are referred to as
remote managed systems. SDMC can be used both as
a global server or a domain server in a hierarchical management setup.
Hierarchical management provides greater scalability through aggregation. A
global server can effectively help manage IBM Systems Director servers and act
as a centralized data center level aggregation point. Hierarchical management
provides a single complete data center view. When the data center uses multiple
systems management appliances, hierarchical management can be used for a
single point of control over all appliances. Hierarchical management is also
similar to the environment where the SDMC manages the systems under a HMC
after discovering the HMC. At the time of writing, Advanced Managers of IBM
Systems Director, such as Active Energy Manager or VMControl, are not
supported in a hierarchical management setup.
Note: In production environments, use the SDMC as a local or domain server,
and use IBM Systems Director as a global server.