Knowledge Base

Monitoring Cisco UCS Servers Running Windows

KB1055 - Dec 09, 2010 - Last reviewed on Jul 17, 2013

Type: Best Practice

Description: How to monitor Cisco UCS servers running Windows with Hardware Sentry.

Additional Keywords: Cisco, Cisco UCS

Related Topics

Principle

Cisco UCS servers are instrumented with a baseboard management controller (BMC) following Intel’s IPMI standard.

On Windows systems, Hardware Sentry KM and BMC Performance Manager Express for Hardware leverages the Microsoft IPMI driver and the IPMI WMI provider to discover the hardware components of the server and check their status.

WMI is therefore the only instrumentation layer and protocol Hardware Sentry KM uses in this case, either locally or remotely.

Prerequisites

  • Hardware Sentry KM 1.7.00 or above if using PATROL and BMC Performance Manager Express for Hardware v2.9.00 or above if using BMC Portal.
  • The Cisco UCS server must be running one of the following versions of Windows:
    • Windows Server 2008 R2
    • Windows Server 2008
    • Windows Server 2003 R2
  • On Windows Server 2003 R2, the monitoring of the server requires the prior installation of the “Hardware Management” component of the “Management and Monitoring Tools” group in the “Add/Remove Windows Components” Control Panel applet.
  • On Windows 2008, the “Hardware Management” component is installed and configured by default.

Monitoring with Hardware Sentry KM

Local Monitoring with a PATROL Agent installed the monitored system

Nothing needs to be specifically configured at the level of Hardware Sentry KM: it automatically discovers all the hardware elements of the server and monitors them.

Remote Monitoring from a remote system

  1. In the PATROL Console, [right-click] on the hardware icon › [KM Commands] › [Add a Remote System or an External Device]
  2. Accept the End User License Agreement
  3. Enter the System Name. Select System or Device Type “Windows”. [Next]
  4. Choose the option “Manually choose which connectors to use”. [Next]
  5. Select the IPMI, WMI-Network, WMI-Disks, WMI-HBA and Windows-DiskPart Connectors. [Next]
  6. Enter valid WMI Credentials for the remote server. [Next]
  7. Click on [Finish]

Monitoring with BMC Performance Manager Express for Hardware

  1. Logon to the Portal and add an element of platform type Windows
  2. Provide valid WMI username and password
  3. Click Next and Finish