Product data

12 IBM Systems Director Management Console: Introduction and Overview
1.6.3 Additional functions
The SDMC comes with the IBM Systems Director base management functions
which offers you additional capabilities to manage your heterogeneous and large
homogeneous infrastructure better. These capabilities include:
򐂰 Automation manager
򐂰 Status manager
򐂰 Firmware and device microcode updates through the Update Manager
򐂰 Call home support
1.6.4 User interface enhancements
SDMC provides you with an user interface that is tightly integrated with the
broader IBM Systems Director user interface. Most of the tasks in SDMC have
the same flow they had in HMC, with slight enhancements and adjustments
made to provide an IBM Systems Director look and feel. Some of the functions
have been enhanced for ease of use.
1.6.5 Redundancy model
The existing redundancy model available in HMC is available in the SDMC as
well. You can connect two SDMCs to a managed system, where an SDMC can
act as the redundant SDMC. You can also use an HMC for redundant
management. Apart from this redundancy model, IBM Systems Director provides
an active-passive availability model that is optional for the SDMC users. In this
model, two SDMC nodes can manage a single server, of which one node is used
(active) and the other is not used (passive) waiting for failover. The existing HMC
active-active redundancy model is available in addition to the active-passive
availability model provided by the IBM Systems Director.
1.6.6 Backup and restore
SDMC provides the capability to back up the whole virtual machine onto
removable media or a remote FTP server. You can restore using the backup file
from the removable media or from a remote FTP server. The restore will be full
image deployment and all existing files will be replaced from the backup. Unlike
the HMC, SDMC backs up the entire disk instead of individual files.
The backup function requires that the SDMC be temporarily shut down to
quiesce the disks, but it will be immediately restarted while the disk files are
copied to removable media or a remote FTP server. The restore function takes
under an hour to complete.