A Dell PowerEdge server

We will end this chapter with a discussion of our management pack for Dell PowerEdge servers. Once again, this solution covers both scalable-chassis and standalone server configurations. On the availability side of things, we'll look at mundane objects—power supplies and fans—that can conspire to ruin your day. We'll also alert you to misconfiguration, such as a disabled BIOS.

This management pack connects to your Dell servers via SNMP.

The Dell Compute Overview dashboard

The Dell Compute Overview dashboard presents health states for servers, power units, and fans (or cooling units, as Dell would have you call them). This is your morning-coffee view of your Dell PowerEdge systems.

A big red rectangle here probably means a trip to the racks, but at least you caught it before operations were hindered.

The Dell Compute Health Investigation dashboard

Before trudging off to the data center, a look at the Dell Compute Health Investigation dashboard is warranted. Here, you will notice the VMs relying on your Dell server, and you can track down the top alerts affecting your system.