Dell OpenManage Essentials Version 1.0 White Paper download pdf (Page 4)

Dell KACE and OpenManage Essentials

As part of OME and KACE K1000 Service Desk integration, users need to:

 Configure e-mail alert action in OME that gets triggered when an alert is received (based on

filters set, including Alert Severity, Alert Category, Device/Device group).

 Configure Service Desk in the KACE K1000 appliance to parse the e-mail received from OME and

create a trouble ticket.

 Validate the configuration by sending a test e-mail from OME.

Introduction

Constant change in computing environments, often driven by new requirements meant to meet

business goals and demands, represents a daunting challenge for every IT organization. Change is also

introduced by external influences, frequently unplanned, in the form of component faults and

remediation, required driver and firmware updates and software patches, and configuration

modifications necessary to thwart security threats. IT staff can be diligent in planning for change and

schedule system updates accordingly, but even effective planning gets sidetracked by surprises in

system downtime or the discovery of critical issues that alter priorities. To ensure project planning

stays on track and system health is maintained, IT staff must proactively control the discovery, testing,

and implementation of system changes.

This is especially true of managing change within a server environment. Servers are typically housed in

secured, air conditioned environments and thus are not constantly monitored, yet they are responsible

for tasks critical to the day-to-day operations of the enterprise and therefore warrant additional

scrutiny. If our approach to identifying and addressing issues with these systems is to react when a

problem arises, we risk significant disruption to IT services, to the organizations that rely on those

services, and to the staff responsible for managing them. To begin proactively managing our servers,

the following questions need to be answered:

 What models of devices do we have in our data center? What components are installed on

them? Are the drivers and firmware for those components up-to-date?

 What software is installed on those systems? Have we applied all necessary patches from our

software vendors?

 Are our system configurations consistent across servers? How do we manage server boot options

and BIOS settings across those servers without having to visit each server and attach a console?

 Are our service contracts up-to-date on our servers? When will our warranties expire? How can

we be notified of this event before it occurs?

 Are our systems vulnerable to security threats? How are we identifying our vulnerabilities?

What are we doing to remediate these threats and how do we track that the remediation has

been performed successfully?

 How do we know when a component has failed? How quickly are we able to react? How do we

track the resolution of a component failure and record what we’ve learned?

To answer these questions effectively, we need a comprehensive view of the systems under

management and the necessary tools to assess and update these systems before issues arise. Of course,

this needs to be accomplished with minimal impact on the IT budget. So the tools need to be easy to

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Dell OpenManage Essentials Version 1.0 White Paper Page 4