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Connecting resource managers

Lenovo XClarity Orchestrator monitors and manages devices through resource and application managers.

Before you begin

You must be a member of a user group to which the predefined Supervisor role is assigned.

XClarity Orchestrator can support an unlimited number of resource managers that collectively manage a maximum of 10,000 total devices.

Ensure that the resource managers are supported (see Supported hardware and software – XClarity Orchestrator).

Ensure that the resource managers are online and reachable on the network from XClarity Orchestrator.

Ensure that the user account that you use to authentication to the resource manager has the correct privileges. For XClarity Administrator, user accounts must be assigned to the lxc-supervisor, lxc-admin, lxc-security-admin, lxc-hw-admin or lxc-recovery role.

Ensure that the resource manager does not have the maximum number of supported event forwarders. XClarity Orchestrator creates an event forwarder in the resource manager when a connection is created to that resource manager.

When connecting a resource manager that has an externally signed certificate:
  • Ensure that it is an X.509 v3 certificate. XClarity Orchestrator cannot connect to a resource manager that has an externally signed v1 certificate.
  • Ensure that the certificate details include the following requirements.
    • KeyUsage must contain
      • Key Agreement
      • Digital Signature
      • Key Encipherment
    • Enhanced Key Usage must contain
      • Server Authentication (1.3.6.1.5.5.7.3.1)
      • Client Authentication (1.3.6.1.5.5.7.3.2)

About this task

XClarity Orchestrator supports the following resource and application managers.
  • Lenovo XClarity Management Hub 2.0. Manages, monitors, and provisions ThinkSystem and ThinkAgile devices. A UDC agent must be installed on each ThinkEdge Client device to allow communication between the device and XClarity Orchestrator.
    Important
    The registration process XClarity Management Hub 2.0 is different than other resource manager. For detailed instructions, see Connecting XClarity Management Hub 2.0 to XClarity Orchestrator.
  • Lenovo XClarity Management Hub. Manages, monitors, and provisions ThinkEdge Client devices. A UDC agent must be installed on each ThinkEdge Client device to allow communication between the device and XClarity Orchestrator.
    Important
    The registration process XClarity Management Hub is different than other resource manager. For detailed instructions, see Connecting XClarity Management Hub for edge-client devices to XClarity Orchestrator.
  • Lenovo XClarity Administrator. Manages, monitors, and provisions Lenovo devices with baseboard management controllers.
  • Schneider Electric EcoStruxure IT Expert. Manages and monitors infrastructure resources.
  • VMware vRealize Operations Manager.
When you connect a XClarity Management Hub or XClarity Administrator resource manager, XClarity Orchestrator:
  • Retrieves information about all devices that are managed by the resource manager.
  • Creates and enables an event forwarder (for a REST web service) in the management server to monitor and forward events to XClarity Orchestrator.

The network address (IP address or hostname) that you provide is used as the manager name.

Procedure

To connect a resource or application manager, complete the following steps.

  1. From the XClarity Orchestrator menu bar, click Resources (Administration icon) > Resource Managers to display the Resource Managers card.

    Resource Managers card
  2. Click the Connect icon (Add icon) to display the resource manager. The Connect resource manager dialog.

    Resource Managers card
  3. Select the type of resource manager, and fill in the required information.
    • XClarity Management Hub 2.0 or XClarity Management Hub
      1. Enter the registration key that is generated by the management-hub instance, and then click Connect.

        To get the registration request token, log in to the management-hub portal, click Registration, and then click Create registration key.

      2. Copy the generated XClarity Orchestrator registration key.
      3. From the management-hub portal, click Registration, and click Install registration key, paste the XClarity Orchestrator registration token, and then click Connect.
    • XClarity Administrator
      • Specify the fully-qualified domain name or IP address (IPv4 or IPv6).

        Using the host name without the domain name is not supported.

      • Optionally change the port of the resource manager. The default is 443.
      • Specify the user account and password to use to log in to the resource manager.
      • Optionally enable Drive Analytics Data Collection. When enabled, drive analytics data is collected daily for ThinkSystem and ThinkAgile devices and is used for predictive analytics.

        Drive analytics data collection is supported only for XClarity Administrator v3.3.0 and later resource managers.

        Attention
        System performance might be affected when data is collected.
    • EcoStruxure IT Expert. Specify the name, token key, and URL to use for the connection.
    • vRealize Operations Manager
      • Specify the fully-qualified domain name or IP address (IPv4 or IPv6).

        Using the host name without the domain name is not supported.

      • Optionally change the port of the resource manager. The default is 443.
      • Optionally select the authorization source for the users and groups.
      • Specify the user account and password to use to log in to vRealize Operations Manager.
  4. Click Connect.

    A job is created to perform this operation. You can monitor the progress of the job from the Monitoring (Monitoring icon) > Jobs card. If the job did not complete successfully, click the job link to display details about the job (see Monitoring jobs.)

    When a connection is established with the resource manager, the manager is added to the table.

  5. If you chose to connect to a XClarity Management Hub, a dialog is displayed with a registration key.

    To complete the connection, Click Copy to Clipboard to copy the registration key. Then, log in to XClarity Management Hub, click Administration > Hub Configuration, and click Install Registration Key. Then, paste the registration key, and click Submit.

After you finish

You can perform the following actions from the Resource Managers card.
  • View the connection status for the resource manager from the Health Status column.
  • Modify credentials and properties for a selected resource manager by clicking the Edit icon (Edit icon).

    A job is created to perform this operation. You can monitor the progress of the job from the Monitoring (Monitoring icon) > Jobs card. If the job did not complete successfully, click the job link to display details about the job (see Monitoring jobs.)

  • Enable or disable drive-analytics-data collection for a selected XClarity Administrator resource manager clicking the Edit icon (Edit icon).
    Note
    The Drive Analytics Data Collection toggle is disabled when XClarity Administrator has connectivity or credentials issues (see Sudden connectivity loss to a resource manager).
  • Disconnect and remove a selected resource manager by clicking the Delete icon (Delete icon).
    Note
    If XClarity Orchestrator cannot connect to the resource manager (for example, if credentials are expired or if there are network issues), select Force disconnect.

    A job is created to perform this operation. You can monitor the progress of the job from the Monitoring (Monitoring icon) > Jobs card. If the job did not complete successfully, click the job link to display details about the job (see Monitoring jobs.)

    When the resource manager is removed, all devices that are managed by that resource manager are also removed. This includes device inventory, logs, metrics data, and analytic reports.

  • Troubleshoot issues when connecting a resource manager (see Cannot connect a resource manager).