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IBM Flex System Manager

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IBM Flex System Manager

IBM Redbooks Product Guide

IBM® Flex System™ Manager (FSM) is a systems management appliance that drives efficiency and cost 
savings in the data center. IBM Flex System Manager provides a pre-integrated and virtualized 
management environment across servers, storage, and networking that is easily managed from a single 
interface. A single focus point for seamless multichassis management provides an instant and 
resource-oriented view of chassis and chassis resources for both IBM System x® and IBM Power 
Systems™ compute nodes. You can reduce the number of interfaces, steps, and clicks it takes to manage 
IT resources, intelligently manage and deploy workloads based on resource availability and predefined 
policies, and manage events and alerts to increase system availability and reduce downtime while  
reducing operational costs.

The IBM Flex System Manager management appliance is shown in the following figure.

Figure 1. IBM Flex System Manager management appliance

Did you know?

IBM Flex System, a new category of computing and the next generation of Smarter Computing, offers 
intelligent workload deployment and management for maximum business agility. This chassis delivers 
high-speed performance complete with integrated servers, storage, and networking for multi-chassis 
management in data center compute environments. Furthermore, its flexible design can meet the needs 
of varying workloads with independently scalable IT resource pools for higher utilization and lower cost 
per workload. While increased security and resiliency protect vital information and promote maximum 
uptime, the integrated, easy-to-use management system reduces setup time and complexity, providing a 
quicker path to return on investment (ROI).

IBM Flex System gives forward-thinking companies a way to completely rethink deployment and 
management of their IT environments; it offers an opportunity to evolve to a more open, agile, and 
integrated computing system that is dynamically managed from a single vantage point to simultaneously 
maximize efficiency and innovation. 

Summary of Contents for Flex System Manager

Page 1: ...ollowing figure Figure 1 IBM Flex System Manager management appliance Did you know IBM Flex System a new category of computing and the next generation of Smarter Computing offers intelligent workload...

Page 2: ...up wizards make deploying compute nodes quick and easy using the IBM Flex System Manager After it is deployed IBM Flex System Manager provides real time updates for compute node health summaries With...

Page 3: ...tware contains a set of components that are responsible for performing certain management functions These components must be activated using the available IBM Feature on Demand FoD software entitlemen...

Page 4: ...ed Chassis with 3 Year SW S S 00D7554 Fabric Provisioning feature upgrade IBM Flex System Manager Service Fabric Provisioning w 1 Yr S S 90Y4221 IBM Flex System Manager Service Fabric Provisioning w 3...

Page 5: ...isioning Fabric provisioning functionality is included in the advanced feature set It is also available as a separate Fabric Provisioning feature upgrade for the base feature set The Advanced Upgrade...

Page 6: ...ovided to VMControl Logical views of servers and network devices grouped by subnet and VLAN Network management advanced feature set or fabric provisioning feature Defines QoS settings for logical netw...

Page 7: ...matically without user intervention replace a failed compute node from a designated pool of spare compute nodes Preassigns MAC addresses WWN addresses and storage boot targets for the compute nodes Cr...

Page 8: ...gement entities becomes unavailable FSM capacity utilization allows the system administrators to understand remaining FSM management capacity Network management integration The IBM Flex System Manager...

Page 9: ...switch modules that are installed in I O bay 1 or bay 2 This setup is referred to as the data network You can configure a switch module in bay 1 or bay 2 to map Eth1 to one of its external Ethernet po...

Page 10: ...Managed systems without any IBM Flex System Manager software installed IBM Flex System Manager communicates with the managed system through the operating system Agentless out of band Managed systems w...

Page 11: ...Compute nodes running VMware and managed by vCenter Yes Yes No No Other managed resources supporting SSH or SNMP Yes Yes No No The following table summarizes the management tasks supported by the comp...

Page 12: ...o No Yes Deploy server system pools Yes Yes No No Yes Deploy storage system pools Yes Yes No No No Linux on IBM Power Systems compute nodes Supported only for virtual servers that are running IBM i v7...

Page 13: ...ated logical network provisioning ALNP Yes Yes Yes Yes No The following table shows supported storage systems and their management tasks Table 9 Supported storage systems and management tasks Storage...

Page 14: ...order and Integrated Management Module IMM and Unified Extensible Firmware Interface UEFI settings for one or more compute nodes before you deploy operating system or virtual images to them Installin...

Page 15: ...e chassis and multiple management nodes from a single application Authentication and security Secure all connections using encrypted protocols for example SSL and secure persistent credentials on your...

Page 16: ...C 50 95 degrees F server on 0 0 60 0 degrees C 32 140 degrees F server off Relative humidity 10 80 Maximum altitude 3 048 m 10 000 ft at 28 degrees C Decrease the maximum altitude by 1 000 ft for eve...

Page 17: ...com common ssi cgi bin ssialias infotype dd subtype ca htmlfid 897 ENUS212 088 US Announcement Letter 212 105 IBM Fabric Manager http ibm com common ssi cgi bin ssialias infotype dd subtype ca htmlfi...

Page 18: ...aterials for this IBM product and use of those Web sites is at your own risk IBM may use or distribute any of the information you supply in any way it believes appropriate without incurring any obliga...

Page 19: ...symbol or indicating US registered or common law trademarks owned by IBM at the time this information was published Such trademarks may also be registered or common law trademarks in other countries A...

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