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v Vital product data (VPD); includes firmware revision numbers, stored in
IBM Systems Director
IBM Systems Director is a platform-management foundation that streamlines the
way you manage physical and virtual systems in a heterogeneous environment. By
using industry standards, IBM Systems Director supports multiple operating systems
and virtualization technologies in IBM and non-IBM x86 platforms.
Through a single user interface, IBM Systems Director provides consistent views for
viewing managed systems, determining how these systems relate to one another,
and identifying their statuses, helping to correlate technical resources with business
needs. A set of common tasks that are included with IBM Systems Director provides
many of the core capabilities that are required for basic management, which means
instant out-of-the-box business value. These common tasks include discovery,
inventory, configuration, system health, monitoring, updates, event notification, and
automation for managed systems.
The IBM Systems Director Web and command-line interfaces provide a consistent
interface that is focused on driving these common tasks and capabilities:
v Discovering, navigating, and visualizing systems on the network with the detailed
v Notifying users of problems that occur on systems and the ability to isolate the
v Notifying users when systems need updates and distributing and installing
v Analyzing real-time data for systems and setting critical thresholds that notify the
v Configuring settings of a single system and creating a configuration plan that can
v Updating installed plug-ins to add new features and functions to the base
v Managing the life cycles of virtual resources
For more information about IBM Systems Director, see the documentation on the
IBM Systems Director CD that comes with the server and the IBM xSeries
Systems Management Web page at http://www.ibm.com/systems/management/,
which presents an overview of IBM Systems Management and IBM Systems
Director.
The UpdateXpress System Packs
The UpdateXpress System Packs provide an effective and simple way to update
device drivers, server firmware, and firmware of supported options contained within
the server, for System x
System Pack contains all the online driver and firmware updates for a specific
machine type and operating system combination. The UpdateXpress System Packs
are released quarterly. Use the UpdateXpress System Pack Installer to install the
current UpdateXpress System Pack for your server.
Important: Some cluster solutions require specific code levels or coordinated code
updates. If the device is part of a cluster solution, verify that the latest level of code
is supported for the cluster solution before you update the code.
nonvolatile memory, for easier remote maintenance
inventory and relationships to the other network resources
sources of the problems
updates on a schedule
administrator of emerging problems
apply those setting to multiple systems
capabilities
®
and IBM BladeCenter
®
servers. Each UpdateXpress
Chapter 1. Introduction
®
9
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