Windows servers show up as "Unknown" in IT Assistant

[Charles_Rose at Dell.com]

John,

Here is what I got from a colleague who is familiar with IT Assistant.
Hope this helps.

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A managed server should appear under the "Servers" group when IT
Assistant is able to classify it correctly.
If it appears under the "Unknown" group, this implies that ITA is unable
to communicate with the agent on the device, in this case, the
OpenManage Server Administrator (OMSA).

The common reasons for this are:
1) Incorrect SNMP configuration (community, trap destination etc) either
at the Management Station or the Managed Server.
2) A firewall or anti-virus software blocking the communication between
ITA management station and the managed server.
3) OMSA services not running for some reason.

I assume SNMP is being selected as the protocol for Discovery and
monitoring from ITA.

I would recommend the following steps to fix the problem:
1) Use the inbuilt "Troubleshooting Tool" in ITA to root-cause the
problem. It can be invoked by right-clicking a server that  is being
classified under the "Unknown" group.
2) Run Ping and SMP tests. These should both Pass, and the SNMP test
results should indicate successful communication with the Server Agent.
3) Run Port connectivity test to ensure SNMP port is not blocked.

If ITA is unable to classify the server correctly, the SNMP test would
most likely "Fail". To resolve:
a) Make sure that the SNMP Community Name is set exactly the same on the
managed server, ITA system and that specified in the Discovery Wizard.
b) No firewall/anti-virus is blocking the communication.
c) The trap destination is set correctly on the managed server, and the
ITA Management Station is correctly configured to accept traps from the
Managed server.

A Video-Tutorial that demonstrates steps involved in configuring SNMP is
available at:
http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/en/enterprise
_videos_list?c=us&l=en&s=gen (Look for "SNMP Configuration using..."
under the section "Enterprise OpenManage Tutorials").

If all the above are done correctly, and still the issue is seen, I
would suggest to cross-verify with an independent third-party
application, specifically the port connectivity and SNMP part.
***********************************************************************

Thanks,
Charles Rose
Linux Engineering
Dell Inc.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: linux-poweredge-bounces at dell.com
[mailto:linux-poweredge-bounces at dell.com] On Behalf Of John
> Oliver
> Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2008 7:05 AM
> To: linux-poweredge-Lists
> Subject: Windows servers show up as "Unknown" in IT Assistant
> 
> Every PowerEdge server we have that runs Windows shows up as "Unknown"
> in IT Assistant.  This includes 2950s, 2850s, 1950s, 1750s, a 750, and
a
> 650  All are running OMSA 5.3.0  I added the IT Assistant's IP address
> as a trap destination on all, but that didn't fix it.
> 
> What do I need to do to get them to show up correctly?  This is pretty
> important, because I'm also working on setting up alerts to notify us
of
> any issues in the Server group, but we can't be woken up at 2AM
because
> some miscellaneous item in "Unknown" has a stroke.
> 
> --
>
***********************************************************************
> * John Oliver                             http://www.john-oliver.net/
*
> *
*
>
***********************************************************************
> 
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