Resource Coordinator VE is a server management product which improves the usability and availability of server systems. It uniformly manages physical servers as well as virtual servers created using server virtualization software (VMware and others).
The level of functionality provided by Resource Coordinator VE may differ depending on the managed hardware environment. Refer to the corresponding "Note" in "1.2 Hardware Environment" of the "ServerView Resource Coordinator VE Installation Guide" for details.
This section explains some of the features provided by Resource Coordinator VE.
Integrated management of physical and virtual servers
Resource Coordinator VE provides an integrated management console for environments made of virtual and physical servers. It helps administrators manage server configurations, monitor hardware failures and determine the cause and impact of system errors by automatically detecting and displaying the following information.
Resource Coordinator VE provides a tree-based view of server hardware and their operating systems (physical OS, VM host or VM guest). This helps tracking relationships between chassis, servers and operating systems.
Resource Coordinator VE monitors server hardware and displays icons representative of each server status.
Resource Coordinator VE also allows administrators to manage both physical and virtual servers in a uniform manner. Once registered, resources can be managed uniformly regardless of server models, types of server virtualization software, or differences between physical and virtual servers.
Auto-Recovery of failed servers
When used with PRIMERGY BX servers, pre-allocating spare servers to primary servers allows the Auto-Recovery function to automatically recover failed applications onto an available spare server. Depending on the server's boot method, either one of the following two switchover methods can be used to recover applications on a spare server:
Backup and restore
This method is used in local boot environments where servers boot from an internal disk. Backing up the system disk of a primary server in advance allows an automatic restoration and startup of the spare server when the primary server fails.
HBA address rename
This method is used in SAN boot environments where servers start from boot disks located in SAN storage arrays. If the primary server fails, its World Wide Name (WWN) is inherited by the spare server, which then automatically starts up from the same SAN disk. This is made possible by the I/O virtualization (*1) capabilities of the HBA address rename function, which is able to dynamically re-configure the WWN of an I/O adapter (HBA).
*1: Refer to "I/O Virtualization".
If VLANs have been set on the LAN switches connected to the primary and spare servers, these VLAN settings are automatically exchanged during server switchover.
Several servers can share one or more common spare servers, irrespective of the kind of servers used (physical or virtual), or the applications that are running on them.
Spare servers can also be shared between physical and virtual servers. This is done by combining the Auto-Recovery with the high availability feature provided with the server virtualization software used.
Note that the Auto-Recovery function differs from clustering software (such as PRIMECLUSTER) in the following respect:
Server failure detection
The Auto-Recovery function can detect hardware failures using server management software (such as ServerView Agents) and server management devices (management blades or remote management controllers). It cannot detect system slowdowns or hang-ups.
Automated server installation and setup
The following three features simplify server installation and setup:
Deploying multiple servers via server cloning
Server cloning is a feature that distributes a cloning image (collected from the system disk of a reference server) to other physical servers. When a cloning image is created, network-specific configuration such as host names and IP addresses are removed from the cloning image. This network-specific configuration is dynamically re-configured on the servers to which the cloning image is distributed. This makes it possible to create duplicates of existing servers that will use the same operating system and software.
Simplified server installation with I/O virtualization
I/O virtualization via HBA address rename (*1) allows storage devices to be set up independently and prior to the rest of the server installation process. Servers can then be installed and set up without the involvement of storage administrators.
*1: Refer to "I/O Virtualization".
Multiple server installations using the pre-configuration feature
The pre-configuration feature can be used to configure various Resource Coordinator VE settings (registration of managed resources and others settings) in one operation. All settings required for a Resource Coordinator VE setup can be defined in a system configuration file, which can then be easily imported from the RC console.
The system configuration file is in CSV format and can be edited easily in environments where Resource Coordinator VE is not installed.
Streamlined server maintenance
The following features help to identify which servers need to be replaced, and assist administrators with maintenance required after a server replacement:
Automatic maintenance LED activation on failed servers. (*1)
*1: Depending on the hardware being used, this feature may or may not be available. Refer to the corresponding "Note" in "1.2 Hardware Environment" of the "ServerView Resource Coordinator VE Installation Guide" for details.
In SAN boot environments, I/O virtualization (*1) provided by HBA address rename makes it possible to restore a failed server's original WWN definition to the replacement server. Resource Coordinator VE is able to quickly reconnect a replaced server to its original volume(s) and start it up from the same operating system without accessing any storage device.
*1: Refer to "I/O Virtualization".
In local boot environments, a system image backed up beforehand can be easily restored to the replaced server to simplify server replacements.
Easy server monitoring
When managing PRIMERGY BX servers, BladeViewer can be used to easily check server statuses and perform other daily operations. In BladeViewer, server statuses are displayed in a format similar to the physical configuration of a blade server system, making server management and operation more intuitive. BladeViewer provides the following features:
Display of server blades mount statuses.
Provides an intuitive way to monitor and control multiple servers' power state.
Makes it easier to visualize which applications are running on each blade. This helps identifying quickly any affected applications when a hardware fault occurs on a server blade.
Easy Network Monitoring
For PRIMERGY BX servers, Resource Coordinator VE provides a Network Map function, which helps visualize and relate physical networks (between servers and LAN switch blades) together with virtualized networks (from VLANs or virtual switches used in server virtualization software). The Network Map provides the following features:
Automatically detects and displays network connections (topology) and link statuses.
Facilitates overall network consistency diagnostics and identification of the resources (physical and virtual) affected by a network issue.
Displays comprehensive content that can be used as a communication basis for server and network administrators, thus smoothing out coordination between the two parties.
Monitoring of power consumption
By activating the power monitoring feature, it is possible to monitor trends in power consumption for devices connected to a registered power monitoring device (PDU or UPS). The power consumption data regularly collected from the power monitoring environment can be output to a file in CSV format.
Relocation of VM guests
By integrating with VM management software (such as VMware vCenter Server or others), Resource Coordinator VE provides the ability to migrate VM guests between physical servers directly from the RC console.
When used with other Resource Coordinator VE functions, this enables the following:
Regroup all VM guests to a subset of servers and shut down any unused server or chassis to reduce overall power consumption.
When server maintenance becomes necessary, VM guests can be migrated to alternative servers and their applications kept alive during maintenance work.
I/O Virtualization
I/O adapters (HBA) for servers are shipped with an assigned physical address that is unique across the world. This World Wide Name (WWN) is used by the storage network to identify servers. Until now, the WWN settings on storage networks needed to be updated whenever servers were added, replaced, or switched over. Resource Coordinator VE uses I/O virtualization technology that makes server-side I/O control possible. It does this by replacing physically-bound WWNs with virtual WWNs assigned to each server based on its role in the system. Resource Coordinator VE provides I/O virtualization via its HBA address rename function.
Note
The blade server option "I/O Virtualization (FC) Option" is required when using HBA address rename.
