Introduction - HP 117755-003 - ProSignia - 740 Technical White Paper

Executive
Summary

Introduction

In today's business environment, server availability has become key to the success of
many businesses that depend on the uninterrupted operation of its servers.
System administrators increasingly rely upon proactive server management tools
developed to aid in optimizing the performance of the system and identifying potential
problems before they affect users on the system. In the event that a problem does occur,
these tools must be available to allow system administrators to resolve problems quickly,
and without taking the server offline, (while the server is not in an OS session). Tools that
provide online (while the system is in an OS session) serviceability increase server
availability and minimize the interruption of daily business activities.
Insight Diagnostics Online Edition is a component of the ProLiant Essentials suite of
management products. The ProLiant Essential Management Packs play an integral role in
the Adaptive Enterprise strategy led by HP. More about the ProLiant Essentials and
Adaptive Enterprise business strategy can be found at:
http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/proliantessentials/index.html
http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/cache/6842-0-0-0-121.aspx
With the complexity of today's server applications and the critical nature of data stored
on servers, maximizing server availability is a requirement for maintaining the successful
operation of a business. Insight Diagnostics Online Edition is a service tool that delivers
enhanced serviceability for ProLiant servers and increases overall availability.
The initial release of Insight Diagnostics Online Edition represents an enhancement to
currently available service tools such as Inspect and Survey Utility. Inspect has long been
used as an offline utility to capture detailed hardware configuration information such as
the types of hardware devices. The Survey Utility was the traditional online utility used to
gather software and critical error log information. Insight Diagnostics Online Edition
replaces this capability by capturing software information in addition to the hardware
elements, allowing access to and management of the Integrated Management Log, and
the ability to manage and compare various Survey sessions.
Service tools, such as Insight Diagnostics Online Edition, can be invaluable in quickly
resolving server problems. To streamline the service process and resolve problems
quickly, it is necessary to have the right information available at the time a service call is
placed. The primary information requirement and the one that provides the greatest
insight into potential server issues is the configuration of the system. Insight Diagnostics
Online Edition delivers this critical data, and addresses customer requirements for
enhanced service tools and higher server availability through its comprehensive feature
design:
Online installation and deployment—Insight Diagnostics Online Edition is easily
deployed from the ProLiant Support Pack.
Operation—There is not a requirement to take the server offline or reboot the server to
use Insight Diagnostics Online Edition.
Comprehensive configuration capture under a single tool—Gathers detailed
hardware and operating system configuration information under a single tool.
Automatic configuration audit trail—Automatically maintains a configuration
history for the server. By storing multiple configuration snapshots and highlighting
changes and differences, the utility can provide a detailed record of the server history.