Compaq ProLiant 1000 HP Insight Diagnostics Online Edition Featuring Survey Ut - Page 7

Online Serviceability: Configuration Capture and Online Reporting Simplified Collection Process Automated Configuration History/Audit Trail Reporting Integration with the Remote Insight Lights-Out Edition A key benefit of the Insight Diagnostics Online Edition is that it delivers configuration capture and reporting, while the system is online. Not only can the Insight Diagnostics Online Edition collect information while the server is online, it can also be installed without having to reboot the server. Online configuration capture is critical because, when the need for a service call arises, one of the first requests made of the customer is to provide detailed configuration information. Service personnel use this information to determine possible component interactions and to pinpoint problem sources. Without a clear understanding of the system configuration, the problem resolution process cannot move forward effectively. The online operation of Insight Diagnostics Online Edition allows system administrators to run the tool on demand, without interruption to applications or users. During a service call, a user is typically asked to complete a number of steps, such as capturing information relating to the operating system version number, the operating system parameters, operating system error log files, startup files, and so on. This information is additional to the hardware configuration information. The process of gathering information requires system administrators to generate reports from multiple sources. Insight Diagnostics Online Edition reduces the time and effort needed to collect this information. By combining hardware and software configuration capture, Insight Diagnostics Online Edition delivers a comprehensive view of the server with the ease and simplicity of a single tool. This approach minimizes problem resolution time. In addition to capturing and reporting the current configuration, customers need a tool to effectively track changes to the configuration. Insight Diagnostics Online Edition also satisfies this need. The audit trail feature of Insight Diagnostics Online Edition maintains a record of configurations, and has the intelligence to automatically identify and highlight where changes in the configuration have occurred. Upon an event trigger (either a reboot of the server, scheduled time interval, or user-initiated action) Insight Diagnostics Online Edition collects a snapshot of the hardware and operating system configuration, and stores the information in a file on the server. The audit trail feature maintains multiple snapshots of the configuration in a file. Eight snapshot generations plus the initial baseline configuration and the active session, are maintained as part of the configuration audit trail. As each snapshot is taken, it is compared to the previous generation already stored in the Insight Diagnostics Online Edition file to determine whether a significant change has occurred. If a significant change is detected, then the differences are "check pointed" to automatically highlight where they have occurred. Check pointing captures the complete state of a system, restores and restart from this state at a later point of time if the system has problems. All configuration snapshots are time and date stamped so the system administrator or service provider can identify when a particular change took place. On Windows and Linux servers in which the optional Remote Insight Lights-Out Edition (RILOE) has been installed, the system configuration is saved in the RILOE each time the Insight Diagnostics Online Edition captures the system configuration. In instances when the server has lost power, the system administrator can browse to the RILOE board and view information that may be critical to bring the server online. For systems running RILOE II to view the Survey information gathered by the host server, use your Web browser to log on to the RILOE board. Under System Status, click the Survey link to view the Survey file.