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Discovering and managing devices using XClarity Management Hub 2.0

Lenovo XClarity Orchestrator discovers and manages supported devices through XClarity Management Hub 2.0.

For more information about discovering and managing devices in XClarity Orchestrator, see Discovering and managing devices.

Discovering devices​

Devices must be discovered by a management hub before they can be managed by XClarity Orchestrator. Devices can be discovered in the following ways.

  • Automatically discover devices

    The management hubs automatically discover supported devices in your environment every five minutes by probing for manageable devices that are in the same IP subnet as the management hub using the SSDP protocol.

    Important
    Ensure that SSDP is enabled on the baseboard management controller on each device as well as routers in your environment. For ThinkSystem devices, click BMC Configuration > Network from the Lenovo XClarity Controller web interface.

  • Use a DNS service to discover devices

    You can use a DNS service to discover ThinkSystem and ThinkEdge servers by manually adding a service record (SRV record) to your domain name server (DNS), and then enabling DNS discovery on the Lenovo XClarity Controller (click BMC Configuration > Network from the XClarity Controller web interface, click the DNS and DDNS tab, select Use DNS to discover, and then select the resource manager from the XClarity Manager list).

    Ensure that the service record includes the following information for ADS-based DNS.
    PropertyValue
    DomainYour root domain
    Service_lxca
    Protocol_tcp
    Priority0
    Weight0
    Port number443
    Host offering this serviceFully-qualified domain name (not the IP address)

  • Manually discover devices

    From the XClarity Orchestrator portal, you can manually discover supported devices in other subnets using specific IPv4 addresses, full-qualified domain names, range of IP addresses, or by probing for manageable devices on specific IP subnets.

    To discover devices, click the Resources (Resources icon) > New Devices from the XClarity Orchestrator menu bar, click Manual Input, select Devices that respond to service discovery protocol, select Manual, and then follow the remaining steps in the wizard to identify the devices that you want to discover and the management hub that you want to use for the discovery.

Managing devices​

The discovered devices are listed on the Discover and manage new devices page. To manage discovered devices, select the target devices, click the Manage Selected Devices icon (Add icon), and follow the steps in the wizard.

If a device is discovered by more than one management hub, the device is listed on the Unmanaged Devices page for each management hub that discovered it, ordered based on the discovery timestamp. When managing a device, you can choose the device that was discovered by the management hub you want to use for management. A device can be managed by XClarity Orchestrator through only one management hub.

Before managing devices:
During the management process, the portal:

  • Creates a management user account named XC1_MGR_{last 8 chars of hub UUID} with an encrypted password on the baseboard management controller for the device. The password is rotated automatically on a regular basis.

    After the management process is complete, the management hub uses this XC1_MGR_* user account to connect to the device for management purposes. The credentials that you provided during the management process are no longer used by the management hub.

  • Adds subscriptions to the device for sending event and metric data to the management hub.

  • Collects inventory and vital product data.

  • Saves sensitive information in the vault.

  • Regenerates the HTTPS certificate on the server if the current HTTPS certificate is either self-signed or signed by another management hub. The HTTPS certificate is valid for 90 days. The management hub regenerates the HTTPS certificate on the server again 45 days before it expires.

    Note
    If the HTTPS certificate is signed by a third party, the management hub sends an event and alert to XClarity Orchestrator seven days before the expiration date.
Attention
If you try to manage a device that is already managed through a management hub, XClarity Orchestrator unmanages the device from the current management hub without the management hub acknowledgement and then manages the device again through the new management hub. After this process, the device remains as managed through the first management hub, but the device no longer sends data to it. Be aware that you must manually remove the devices from the first management hub through the connected portal.

After the devices are managed, the management hub polls each managed device every 24 hours to collect and send inventory data to XClarity Orchestrator.

Tip

  • If XClarity Orchestrator loses communication with a device (for example, due to power loss or network failure) while collecting inventory during the management process, the management completes successfully; however, some inventory information might be incomplete. Either wait for the device to come online and for XClarity Orchestrator to poll the device for inventory or manually refresh inventory on the device.

  • If the IP address of a managed device changes, you must unmanage the device, and then manage it again.

  • You can use other management software (such as VMware vRealize Operations Manager) in tandem with XClarity Orchestrator to monitor but not manage devices that XClarity Orchestrator manages.

Unmanaging devices​

You can unmanaged devices in your organization. Click the Managed devices panel title from the Device management view, select the devices that you no longer want to managed, and click the Unmanage icon (Unmanage icon).

During the management process:

  • The management user account (XC1_MGR_*), and event and metric subscriptions are removed from the device.

  • Sensitive information in the vault, inventory, vital product data, event forwarders between the device and the management hub, and events and alerts that were raised by the device are discarded on the management hub.

  • Events there were raised for the device by the management hub are kept on the management hub.

Device considerations​

ThinkSystem servers

Some ThinkSystem servers support two XCC IP addresses. If two XCC IP addresses are present:

  • Ensure that each XCC IP address is configured on separate subnets.

  • The management hub can use only one XCC IP address to manage a server. If the management hub discovers two XCC IP addresses for the same server, only the IP address with the smaller number is listed in the discovered devices table.

  • The IP address that you use to manage the server becomes the management IP address. If there is a connectivity issue with the IP address, the management hub does not failover to use the second XCC IP address.

ThinkSystem SR635 and SR655 servers

Ensure that an operating system is installed, and that the server was booted to the OS, mounted bootable media, or efishell at least once so that the management hub can collect inventory for those servers.

Ensure that IPMI over LAN is enabled. IPMI over LAN is disabled by default on these servers and must be manually enabled before the servers can be managed. To enable IPMI over LAN from ThinkSystem System Manager web interface, click Settings > IPMI Configuration. You might need to restart the server to activate the change.