OMi - What is it really?!
There's been a lot of confusion (on my part as well, I must confess) about what exactly OMi is, and how it works. On the plus side, I've just had a great chat with one of the developers & two of the solution architects to help me finally understand what it is, how it works, and why you might want it.
First things first - OMi is a name only appreciated by the marketing team because it has caused mass confusion - OMi is NOT the next version of OMW in the way that NNMi is for NNM. OMi is a "layer-on-top" tool that enhances your troubleshooting & root cause analysis capabilities for OMW/OMU (and OML?) and comes as part of the BAC suite. By purchasing & installing OMi you get BAC, and must install & operate the BAC server. So this loops back to those still running OVIS and wondering about what they'll need to do about moving off of it (topic for upcoming post - OVIS migration to BAC).
If you want to make use of OMi you need to do a couple of things...
1. Have OMW or OMU running with all requisite SPIs
2. Get your NNM up to NNMi (unless you don't have it, then skip this step)
3. Install BAC & OMi (kind of one step...)
4. In installing BAC & OMi you by default install uCMDB, which must now be configured
5. Run the automated configuration tool to pull the data from your OMW/U tool to populate the uCMDB
6. Start to configure your dashboards and views
Of course, I've grossly over-simplified, but it's a roadmap to get you started. As always - if you have specific questions you'd like me to answer or thoughts you'd like to share on any of this please reply to the postings!
Taking the "blah" out of blogging on IT Project, Service, and Operations management topics.
Showing posts with label Operations Manager for Windows. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Operations Manager for Windows. Show all posts
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
HP Software OMW vs. OMi
Yesterday I was in attendance at a presentation by HP Software gurus and one of the topics was HP Software Operations Manager. One of the items I found a little confusing at first, and thought I'd share with the online community was the idea of OMW versus OMi. Currently, most of the install base of the Operations Manager product from HP software is one of the following:
"old naming conventions" old products (still supported, but not sold)
HP OpenView Operations for Windows 7.5x (OVOW)
"new naming conventions" current products
HP Software Operations Manager for Windows 8.x
HP Software Operations Manager i 8.x
(note that I'm just focussing on the Windows platform for the moment)
As it turns out, OMW & OMi are differing products, primarily in the interface. Keeping in mind that OMW (& OMi) architecturually are split into three peices - agentry, server, and console. OMi uses the same agentry & server components, but layers a new console on these.
Confused yet? :-)
OMW is currently at release 8.10 and will continue with future releases for now (next expected later this year to be 8.15) as fixes/improvements are added to the product. OMi is being developed in parallel, and is an upgrade (free for current OMW support contract holders) to OMW 8.10. Once you've "migrated" to OMi you stay on that platform. HP is not "pushing" customers to OMi at this time, so if you've got OMW running well, and don't see an immediate need for OMi features (to be discussed in my next posting) then don't rush out the door, but start your research.
Please feel free to ask for any further clarification that I can add to my next postings!
"old naming conventions" old products (still supported, but not sold)
HP OpenView Operations for Windows 7.5x (OVOW)
"new naming conventions" current products
HP Software Operations Manager for Windows 8.x
HP Software Operations Manager i 8.x
(note that I'm just focussing on the Windows platform for the moment)
As it turns out, OMW & OMi are differing products, primarily in the interface. Keeping in mind that OMW (& OMi) architecturually are split into three peices - agentry, server, and console. OMi uses the same agentry & server components, but layers a new console on these.
Confused yet? :-)
OMW is currently at release 8.10 and will continue with future releases for now (next expected later this year to be 8.15) as fixes/improvements are added to the product. OMi is being developed in parallel, and is an upgrade (free for current OMW support contract holders) to OMW 8.10. Once you've "migrated" to OMi you stay on that platform. HP is not "pushing" customers to OMi at this time, so if you've got OMW running well, and don't see an immediate need for OMi features (to be discussed in my next posting) then don't rush out the door, but start your research.
Please feel free to ask for any further clarification that I can add to my next postings!
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
nworks VMware SPI for HPSW OMW8
Some late breaking news. I found out today that nworks, the maker of the most excellent VMware & BES SPIs for the OVOW 7.x platform have committed to having an Operations Manager for Windows 8.0 compatible SPI available April 7th (2008). You heard it on ITManageCast first.
HP Partner Enablement Galaxy - March Part Deux
Well, we've completed the third day here in "Nawleens" and my take is that PEG this Spring has been better than last Fall. I know Steve Myers took quite a bit of the feedback from the fall session to heart and it helped improve the sessions we had.
I've been taking the OMW8/SiteScope session, and we've completed the OMW8 sessions led by Lars Droeger from HPSW Germany. Lars was able to give a great hands-on experience as we worked through VMs of OMW. I stayed late last night to tackle some extra labs, but have felt that I've gotten quite a bit out of that. This afternoon we tackled DMA (Dependency Mapping Automation) which is effectively the automated connector between OMW8 and uCMDB. Dave Trout from HP was leading the DMA sessions. Unfortunately for Dave he was trying to get us to use lab VMs back at Fort Collins but the bandwidth out of the hotel was so limited that RDP sessions had screen refreshes that just c-r-a-w-l-e-d. I made sure to pass that feedback to Steve tonight.
Speaking of tonight, I should mention that Steve Myers sure can throw a party. It was the Riverboat Gambling Theme Party tonight for everyone attending and Steve & Opus (the conference organizing company) put on a fantastic dinner. There were a few tables with different gambling games, a live band playing Dixieland, a couple of gents from the Bayou with three 'gators to play with, and lovely young show-girls to greet us at the doors. Not to mention the open bar & fantastic variety of food. So, my thanks to everyone involved in putting that on!
Back to the learnin' an' stuff. I was able to get a lot of knowledge out of the DMA session with Dave Trout. HP's uCMDB is a powerful tool, but I'm thinking they may have it priced out of reach for most. Some of the underlying technology is impressive though, I was particularly impressed with the elegant "Smart Message Mapping" solution for replacing SPI discovered service objects with objects/relationships from the CIs in the CMDB. It's powerful, but a pretty expensive solution. Any of my clients can contact me for ball-park pricing. It does seem that the messaging from HP is that uCMDB is going to be core/central to all their major ESM offerings.
HP OM8 for Windows - First Review
While at PEG March '08 I've been attending the Operations Manager Windows 8/SiteScope training. I've had the web-delivered "intro to" session a couple of months ago, but there's nothing like the hands-on with the HP experts there to walk you through and answer questions.
Prior to this week, I knew at a high-level what most of the new features/functions to the Windows version of the product would be. A lot of the functionality that was previously only available with the Unix version has been ported. I also knew about Reporter, the HTTPS agents, and Performance being packaged up together in OMW8.
My initial thoughts after three days of instructor-led hands-on is that there are enough significant improvements here for any OVOW 7.x users to start planning their upgrade. And anyone who is going down the path of trying to find an ESM solution should give this product a fair shake in their evaluations.
Nodes Business Like ESM Business
Having the External Nodes feature available for the Windows platform is great. You can use the standard pattern matching syntax for OM to match messages from nodes not in DNS against "catch-all" groups and this is helpful as many organizations don't seem to have their DNS 100% clean... But besides processing messages, the ability (which has been there previously) to have nodes without agents in the node & service topology is quite handy. HP has put a new wrapper around the node config editor which is useful since the addition of the HTTPS agent type makes node config a little trickier than it used to be. However, you can always jump to "expert mode" and do things the "old" way. Obviously, the inclusion of the HTTPS agents is a huge leap forwards for the Windows management world, but beware - it's not just a single port each way to manage through the firewall. Another really nice touch is the ability to push HTTPS agents to UNIX nodes. This function is technically unsupported, but easy and useful.
Service Please!
Version 8 also brings the CLI access to the configuration of service via the service API.
Config This
For anyone who's rolled up their sleeves and dug into the OVOW registry previously, you'll be glad to hear about the Server Configuration editor in OMW8. Many of the settings and configuration that were largely unknown and only available through registry edits are now contained in this powerful GUI. Config items from auditing to database to agent certificates are accessed through this interface. Another long-awaiting config item is the ability to add AD groups to roles in the User Role Config Editor.
Other useful features include the unplanned/scheduled outages, remote action security, and detailed heart-beat polling config options.
All-in-all, if you're an OVOW shop today, start talking to your consultants about the upgrade (it's going to take some planning!) and if you're not using a tool like this yet, check it out. Pricing is still going to be the major issue for anyone new to this market space, and I'm waiting to hear from HP if they'll be offering an "Express" package like they did for OVOW 7.5x to make it more affordable to the mid-tier market.
Prior to this week, I knew at a high-level what most of the new features/functions to the Windows version of the product would be. A lot of the functionality that was previously only available with the Unix version has been ported. I also knew about Reporter, the HTTPS agents, and Performance being packaged up together in OMW8.
My initial thoughts after three days of instructor-led hands-on is that there are enough significant improvements here for any OVOW 7.x users to start planning their upgrade. And anyone who is going down the path of trying to find an ESM solution should give this product a fair shake in their evaluations.
Nodes Business Like ESM Business
Having the External Nodes feature available for the Windows platform is great. You can use the standard pattern matching syntax for OM to match messages from nodes not in DNS against "catch-all" groups and this is helpful as many organizations don't seem to have their DNS 100% clean... But besides processing messages, the ability (which has been there previously) to have nodes without agents in the node & service topology is quite handy. HP has put a new wrapper around the node config editor which is useful since the addition of the HTTPS agent type makes node config a little trickier than it used to be. However, you can always jump to "expert mode" and do things the "old" way. Obviously, the inclusion of the HTTPS agents is a huge leap forwards for the Windows management world, but beware - it's not just a single port each way to manage through the firewall. Another really nice touch is the ability to push HTTPS agents to UNIX nodes. This function is technically unsupported, but easy and useful.
Service Please!
Version 8 also brings the CLI access to the configuration of service via the service API.
Config This
For anyone who's rolled up their sleeves and dug into the OVOW registry previously, you'll be glad to hear about the Server Configuration editor in OMW8. Many of the settings and configuration that were largely unknown and only available through registry edits are now contained in this powerful GUI. Config items from auditing to database to agent certificates are accessed through this interface. Another long-awaiting config item is the ability to add AD groups to roles in the User Role Config Editor.
Other useful features include the unplanned/scheduled outages, remote action security, and detailed heart-beat polling config options.
All-in-all, if you're an OVOW shop today, start talking to your consultants about the upgrade (it's going to take some planning!) and if you're not using a tool like this yet, check it out. Pricing is still going to be the major issue for anyone new to this market space, and I'm waiting to hear from HP if they'll be offering an "Express" package like they did for OVOW 7.5x to make it more affordable to the mid-tier market.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)