HP Insight Control Linux Edition for HP BladeSystem is a blade-centric Linux management and deployment software package that provides administration and control of HP BladeSystem servers. It is the latest version of what was formerly known as HP Control Tower. This software is built on Linux and open source components and delivers deployment and in-depth management of HP BladeSystem ProLiant servers.

The HP Insight Control Linux Edition provides these key capabilities:

• Easy to use interface that is tailored to the specific tasks and operations unique to blade and Linux users
• Discovery, health monitoring and alerting, and control operations for HP BladeSystem through a secure, web-based console
• Easy to use, flexible task chain operations for deployment and change management tasks
• One to many operating system provisioning of HP BladeSystem c-Class and p-Class servers
• Detailed blade rack visualization combined with an interface to HP BladeSystem Onboard Administrator (OA) enclosure management module and HP's Integrated Lights-Out (iLO) and iLO 2 remote management processor
• Secure and separate management network unites deployment, monitoring and remote management for all types of customer networking environments
• Modular design provides easy extensibility for future additions and functionality

The HP Insight Control Linux Edition is delivered as a soft appliance CD containing all necessary software (Linux operating system, database, underlying HP Control Tower software) for the user to install on the supported management appliance platforms, either a HP ProLiant BL20p G3 or G4; any c-Class server blade (HP ProLiant BL460c, BL465c, BL480c and BL685c), or HP ProLiant DL360 G4/G4p or G5 SCSI server. That server becomes a dedicated management appliance server hosting HP Insight Control Linux Edition.

As part of the Insight Control family of packaged software from HP, Insight Control Linux Edition is a software solution for Linux centric blade environments.

What's new in Insight Control Linux Edition 1.6? Release 1.6 adds support for the latest releases of Red Hat Enterprise Server (RHEL 4 update 5, RHEL 5 PSP) and Novell's SuSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES 10 PSP enablement), along with additional updates to address product issues (2007 Daylight Savings Time updates for Australia, support for greater than 4 partitions, interactive installs). These capabilities are in addition to the Release 1.5 capabilities which support the HP BladeSystem c-Class and its ProLiant c-Class server blades, with (1) additional supported management appliance hosts, (2) enablement for installing Debian, (3) new task chains for hardware configuration, firmware updates, and installing/booting custom Linux environments, and (4) other interface and feature enhancements.

Starting July 9, 2007, HP Insight Control Linux Edition for HP BladeSystem include one year of 24 x 7 HP Software Technical Support and Update Service ensuring rapid access to HP support staff and proactive delivery of software updates. For more information about this service, please visit: http://www.hp.com/services/insight.

• HP Insight Control Linux Edition 1.6 -- supporting RHEL4 update 5, RHEL5, SLES 10 PSP enablement, and additionally addresses several product issues.

HP Insight Control Linux Edition licenses are capacity-based; which provides license(s) to use HP Insight Control Linux Edition for a given quantity of managed servers. One license is required for each server to be deployed and managed via HP Insight Control Linux Edition. The license is not tied to any given managed server(s); in other words, you can manage any combination of servers not to exceed the total number of registered HP Insight Control Linux Edition licenses. License administration capabilities are provided in the HP Insight Control Linux Edition software running on the management appliance.
HP Insight Control Linux Edition must be registered via the website (http://www.hp.com/go/activatecontroltower) as instructed in the license kit in order to receive the license activation file needed to activate and associate the purchased number of licenses to your HP Insight Control Linux Edition management appliance.

Full terms and conditions are contained in the End User License Agreement, which you must accept prior to using HP Insight Control Linux Edition software.

NOTE: Licenses need only to be purchased for managed servers. The HP Insight Control Linux Edition management appliance (host) does not itself require a license.

NOTE: HP Control Tower 1.0/1.1 licenses can be used for HP Insight Control Linux Edition.

Licenses are additive such that you can combine multiple licenses together to achieve a total number of server licenses managed by any one (or more) HP Insight Control Linux Edition management appliance (hosts). Guidance as to the scalability of the HP Insight Control Linux Edition management appliance to support varying numbers of managed servers is given further below in this document.

To order HP Insight Control Linux Edition, contact your Account Manager or HP Authorized Reseller, or purchase online at http://www.hp.com.
For more information regarding HP Insight Control Linux Edition, visit: http://www.hp.com/go/icle.
For more information regarding HP BladeSystem, visit http://www.hp.com/go/bladesystem.
For additional information on other HP manageability products and services, visit http://www.hp.com/servers/manage.

Users can upgrade from HP Control Tower 1.0/1.1 to Insight Control Linux Edition at no cost. Users who are currently using Control Tower 1.0 must upgrade to 1.1 before upgrading to Insight Control Linux Edition.

• Delivers a rapidly installed, tightly integrated and immediately configured blade-centric management and deployment environment for Linux
  
• Enables immediate Linux and Windows operating system deployment from a remote console, particularly suited for Linux-oriented deployments
  
• Enables one to many configuration, and use of built-in task chains for common deployment or change management tasks, monitoring and alerting, and control points to iLO remote management
  
• Provides multiple ways to monitor and manage your HP BladeSystem environment to suit different needs and situations
  
• HP offers a complete service and support to ensure the success of your HP BladeSystem environment and its management

• Multiple simultaneous secure (SSL, SSH) user access via client-hosted web browser
• Support for HP BladeSystem Linux and Windows targets for all management and deployment functions
• ProLiant and HP Control Tower management agents optionally provide additional management data and task execution
• Facilitated logical group creation and deployment/management of logical groups of servers
• Role-based and group-based security options
• SSL encryption between client browser and management server, and between optional management agents and management server
• Security via user's operating system authentication or LDAP/Active Directory server
• ACLs stored internally, internally generated audit logs
• Launchable from within HP Systems Insight Manager via a tool definition file (TDEF)
• Browser-based Graphical User Interface (GUI) control for all functions
• Context-sensitive help system
• Foundation capabilities:
  • PXE-based discovery and identification
  • Option to automatically update to minimum firmware levels required for discovery
  • Automatically-generated topology view of all HP BladeSystem elements within rack, enclosure, individual bays, management modules
  • Enclosure and environmental status (fans, power supplies)
  • Photo-realistic views of blade servers, enclosures, power subsystem and switches, complete with LED status
  • Server summary data
  • Action controls - Hard Reset, Power On/Off, Soft Reboot, Soft Shutdown, Secure Shell, iLO web console access, Remote Console access, System Management Homepage
  • Seamless access to and control points to remotely manage through HP's integrated Lights-Out (iLO) remote management processor
• Monitoring and Alerting capabilities:
  • SNMP and hardware inventory data collection
  • Health monitoring with pre-failure warranty support when the ProLiant System Management Homepage is used
  • Paging and e-mail alerting
  • Action on event support
• Deployment Manager and Task Manager capabilities:
  • One to many Linux and Windows operating system provisioning of HP BladeSystem servers, including enablement of custom Linux install/boot environments (such as Debian)
  • Single interface to take action or collect information for one or many servers at a time
  • Physical or group view of servers up to a full rack at a time
  • Legend based display, hardware information via mouse over
  • Wizard interface for more complex tasks
  • Individual server or mass selection at rack and chassis level - click to select many at the same time
  • Execute Task Chain - Perform multiple actions against servers using single task chain
  • Use pre-defined task chains - numerous pre-defined common tasks
  • Intelligent task chains - Task chains pre-defined for appropriate systems or operating system
  • Select Task Chain Group - Group tasks logically around common tasks performed or specific operating system tasks
  • Schedule Task Chain - 15 pre-defined schedules for quick selection and execution, or create a custom schedule
  • Operating system deployment using native operating system installation methods, image-based capture and re-deploy
  • Supports deploying to and booting from external Fibre Channel storage area networks (SANs) using both native operating system installation and image capture/deploy
  • Hardware configuration and firmware update task chains
  • Collect firmware information task chain
  • Simple tasks to personalize servers or collect information
  • Task Profiles (templates) to save different configurations of a given task chain for standardized reuse
  • Drill down views of task progress - View the log for status of the task chain and task being executed - provides full detailed history of operations performed on a server
  • Integrated with HP's integrated Lights-Out (iLO) management processor to remotely control and monitor the server
  • HP BladeSystem specific tasks such as ProLiant Support Pack installation
  • Task capability to deploy patches
  • Support for Linux and Windows file systems and partitioning
  • Detailed progress bar and logs for deployment history and troubleshooting

Starting in July 2007, Insight Control Linux Edition will include one year of 24 x 7 HP Software Technical Support and Update Service. This service provides access to HP technical resources for help in resolving software implementation or operations problems. The service also provides access to software updates and reference manuals either in electronic form or on physical media as they are made available from HP.

With this service, Insight Control Linux Edition customers will benefit from expedited problem resolution and proactive notification and delivery of Insight Control Linux Edition software updates.

To activate your HP Software Technical Support and Update Service for Insight Control Linux Edition, you must register your software purchase through the HP website at http://www.hp.com/go/icle. Failure to register your service will jeopardize service fulfillment.

Your Service Agreement Identifier (SAID) will be delivered to you after registration. After you have received your SAID, you can go to the software update manager (SUM) web page to view your contract online and elect electronic delivery (in addition to standard media-based updates). For more information about this service, see http://www.hp.com/services/insight.

• HP Systems Insight Manager
• Insight Control Environment for BladeSystem
• ProLiant Essentials Blade Foundation Pack (ships with every HP BladeSystem server blade enclosure)
• ProLiant Essentials Performance Management Pack
• ProLiant Essentials Integrated Lights-Out
• ProLiant Essentials Intelligent Networking Pack
• ProLiant Essentials Virtual Machine Management Pack

© Copyright 2007 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.

The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.