Edit: They tried. The workshop link is not active. The schedule / ibmquicklinks link is not active. The links to download and install are no longer active.
Originally posted August 25, 2009 on AIXchange
As complexity increases, we find that we need better tools to manage our machines. If we’re only responsible for one or two machines, then logging in and leaving topas or vmstat running in a few xterm windows might make sense. Managing these smaller environments probably isn’t very challenging. However, if you’re dealing with many different physical and virtual machines, logical partitions, the HMC, VIO servers, etc., management and administration can become much more complex and cumbersome. Then add to the puzzle the physical x86 servers running VMware and providing the opportunities to run vmotion or live partition mobility. Now you need to track where LPARs are physically running.
IBM’s solution for dealing with these challenges is IBM Systems Director.
I recently attended an IBM Systems Director workshop where I listened to lectures and participated in hands-on lab exercises with Director 6.1. I had seen 6.1 before, and I’ve read announcements and articles about it, but I hadn’t spent much time working in depth with it. If your only exposure to Systems Director is the 5.2 version, check into this workshop (link not active). It can help you see the benefits of using IBM Systems Director 6.1 to manage your computing environment. As IBM says, this is a workshop, not a class.
This is from the Web site:
“IBM is presenting these workshops to give participants the information needed to be successful in the implementation, use and maintenance of an IBM Systems Director management environment. This includes the use of IBM systems management tools and utilities including IBM Systems Director.”
Go view the schedule and see if a workshop is headed to your area. It’s well worth a moment of your time.
More from IBM:
“The workshop will include discussions, presentations, videos, demonstrations and hands-on activities. Topics will vary based on time considerations and attendee interest. There is no cost for participation in the workshop.”
In my workshop we had access to a laptop loaded with VMware. It had a total of three virtual machines preinstalled: one ran Systems Director, another a Windows operating system with a Systems Director agent running on it, and the third ran agentless. Among other tasks, we were able to log-on and run discovery to find devices, request access to machines so that Systems Director could log in, run inventory on the systems to get more information about them, set up alerts based on criteria that we are interested in, manage updates for the different systems, remotely install System Director agents on systems we wanted to manage, set up Systems Director user access, etc.
If you can’t get to a workshop yourself, you can still browse various resources devoted to System Director, including frequently asked questions and links to videos and the CD that are handed out during the workshops.
Go here and here to download and install the actual IBM Systems Director product.
Here’s IBMer Greg Hintermeister describing the installation process in an article (link not active) he wrote earlier this year:
“IBM Systems Director integrates the embedded AIX console tasks for extending AIX operating system management. From the Power Systems Management summary page, select ‘AIX systems’ under the operating systems category. From here, right-click an operating system to select the AIX web console to launch. One new task in the AIX console is the health task, which shows system configuration values and graphs of key performance metrics, as well as the top processes and file systems in use.”
I’d heard for some time that IBM Systems Director 6.1 is new and improved compared to the 5.2 version. Now I know, thanks to the workshop. I encourage you to look more closely at the product–download it, install it, use it. Then post your own thoughts in Comments.