HP Insight Control for VMWare

So, you have:

2 X HP Proliant DL360p Gen8 Servers with 2 X 10 Core Processors

1 X MSA 2040 SAN – With Dual Controllers

And you want more visibility, functionality, and more important “Insight” on your systems where the hardware meets the software. This is where HP Insight Control for VMWare comes in to play.

This package is amazing for providing information and “Insight” in to all your equipment, including servers and storage units. It allows you to update firmware, monitor and manage servers, monitor and manage storage arrays, and rapidly deploy new data stores and manage existing ones. It makes all this information and functionality available via the vSphere management interfaces, which is just fantastic.

I was browsing the downloads area on HP’s website for the MSA 2040, and the website told me I should download “Insight Control for VMWare”, I figured why not! After getting this package installed, I instantly saw the value.

HP Insight control for VMWare, allows you to access server health, management, and control, along with storage health, management, and control. It supports HP servers with iLo, and fully supports the MSA 2040 SAN.

Installation was a breeze, it was installed within seconds. I chose to install it directly on to my demo vSphere 5.5 vCenter server. Barely any configuration is required, the installation process was actually a few clicks of “Next”. Once install, you simply have to configure iLo credentials, and then add your storage system if you have a compatible SAN. Even adding your SAN is super easy, and it allows you to choose whether you want Insight Control to have full access to the SAN (which allows you to create, and manage datastores), or only Read Only, which only allows it to pull information from the unit.

And for those of you concerned about port conflicts, it uses:

3500,3501, 3502, 3503, 3504, 3505, 3506, 3507, 3508, 3509, 3510, 3512, 3513, 3511, 8090.

The Insight Control for VMWare is available through both the software client, and the web client. As far as I’m concerned it’s a “must have” if your running HP equipment in your vSphere environment!