Technical white paper HP Server Automation Virtual Appliance (aka SA Standard) Secure, simplified, and lower-cost edition of HP Server Automation for small to medium size deployments Table of contents A solution for automated server configuration management ........................................................................................ 2 HP Server Automation Virtual Appliance (SAVA) feature overview ............................................................................... 2 Server Automation Virtual Appliance design and architecture overview ..................................................................... 3 Server automation client ....................................................................................................................................................... 4 OS provisioning and configuration ....................................................................................................................................... 4 Patch management ................................................................................................................................................................. 7 Software management .......................................................................................................................................................... 9 Audit and compliance management .................................................................................................................................... 9 Virtualization management ................................................................................................................................................ 10 Global Shell (OGFS) ................................................................................................................................................................ 11 HP Live Network ................................................................................................................................................................... 11 Appliance management and maintenance ....................................................................................................................... 12 Summary—A lightweight solution for server automation ........................................................................................... 12 Technical white paper | HP Server Automation Virtual Appliance A solution for automated server configuration management HP Server Automation software version 10.0 (HP SA) enables automated server configuration and system management. A key IT automation tool for server administrators, it is offered in two editions: 1. HP Server Automation Enterprise with the complete set of features, full set of managed platform support, and extreme scale known for the product 2. HP Server Automation Virtual Appliance (SAVA) aka HP Server Automation Standard is a single HP Server Automation (SA) core packaged as a virtual machine. This offering completely simplifies the setup required for HP Server Automation and reduces the setup time to under an hour. SAVA is targeted specifically for small to medium size deployments and with SAVA customers will be able to manage the entire lifecycle management of servers for up to 3000 servers. HP Server Automation Standard or SAVA supports a limited set of HP Server Automation Enterprise capabilities. For example, SAVA only supports Windows®- and Linux-based operating systems platforms. For more information on SAVA- supported platforms, see the SAVA support matrix. This white paper presents a brief overview of the HP Server Automation Virtual Appliance (SAVA) architecture, and provides a very high level insight into specific features it offers as well as the security and maintenance of the overall virtual appliance itself. HP Server Automation Virtual Appliance (SAVA) feature overview System administrators use SAVA to provision and manage servers through their entire lifecycle. SAVA uses resources such as OS build plans and scripts to run deployment jobs. With SAVA, patch administrators can establish patch polices to install and maintain patches for supported operating systems running on managed servers. With SAVA, compliance managers have visibility across the managed servers to see which servers are out of compliance and can then remediate non-compliant servers to bring them back into compliance, based on policies created within SA. SAVA helps you perform the following system management tasks: • Scan your networks for unmanaged servers and deploy SA agents for management • Install Windows, Linux, VMware ESXi, and Hyper-V™ on HP and non-HP servers • Update drivers, utilities, and firmware on HP ProLiant servers using the HP Service Packs for ProLiant (SPPs) • Configure HP ProLiant system hardware, Integrated Lights-Out (iLOs), BIOS, and HP Smart Array • Deploy to target servers without using PXE (HP ProLiant Gen8 and later, HP servers only) • Apply the required operating system patches for Windows and Linux servers • Install and configure software applications using templates called software policies • Use out-of-the-box application configuration templates to push configurations to all managed servers • Define server configuration policies to help ensure SAVA-managed servers meet corporate defined standards as well as the compliance regulations from industry-standard bodies or government organizations • Remediate non-compliant servers to bring them into compliance • Get complete visibility of all physical and virtual machine environments (VMware ESXi and Hyper-V) from a single tool • Create and manage VM templates for multiple virtualization vendor tools within SAVA • Search for VMs based on their genealogy (creation record) and by other virtual characteristics • Manage servers remotely for routine maintenance or troubleshooting issues from a single tool using SA Global Shell (OGFS) capability 2 Technical white paper | HP Server Automation Virtual Appliance Server Automation Virtual Appliance design and architecture overview HP Server Automation Virtual Appliance (SAVA) comes completely preinstalled and pre-configured on a virtual machine (VM) in a CentOS 6 platform and communicating with PostgreSQL 9.0 database in the backend. Figure 1 shows a high level view of the SAVA architecture. Browser SA virtual appliance Appliance IP address NIC Deployment IP address SA client Provision Patch Target server PostgreSQL Model repository Software Audit Deployment interface DHCP server Media server Media server SA agent optional optional (OS prov) Figure 1. SAVA architecture As Figure 1 shows, SAVA requires two IP addresses: • Appliance IP address: used to manage the appliance lifecycle and operations, such as patching/upgrading the appliance or embedded SA core, getting support logs • Deployment IP address: used by SA users to connect the nGUI to the embedded SA core to perform deployment or other SA specific tasks The target server represents a server managed by SAVA. Each managed server runs an SA agent, which is software used to make changes to the server. The SA agent is used for software installation and removal, software and hardware configuration, and server status reporting. The external media server is required for OS provisioning tasks and contains vendor-supplied OS media used during OS provisioning. It may also contain media for other purposes, such as firmware and driver updates, and is also where captured images are stored. The external media server is a separate server from the SAVA appliance and is not included as part of the appliance backup and restore actions. The media for other SA features such as software management, patching, and others is kept inside the appliance itself. The model repository is a SA component that stores critical information about SA and its managed server environment including inventory of all servers under management, inventory of the hardware associated with these servers such as memory, CPUs, storage capacity, and so on, managed server configuration, inventory of the operating systems, system software, and applications installed on managed servers, inventory of OS provisioning operating system installation media (the media itself is stored in the external media server), inventory of software available for installation, and the software policies that control how the software is configured and installed as well as the authentication and security information. The Model Repository in SAVA is actually inside the PostgreSQL 9.0 optimized and embedded within the SAVA appliance itself. Server automation client Also known as SA nGUI, the SAVA SA client is a Java-based tool that is installed on a SA user desktop and connects to the SA core within SAVA via the deployment IP address. Figure 2 displays a snapshot of the SA client navigation pane showing the operational tabs for SAVA users to manage their servers, scripts, jobs, and so on. 3 Technical white paper | HP Server Automation Virtual Appliance Server automation client Also known as SA nGUI, the SAVA SA client is a Java-based tool that is installed on a SA user desktop and connects to the SA core within SAVA via the deployment IP address. Figure 2 displays a snapshot of the SA client navigation pane showing the operational tabs for SAVA users to manage their servers, scripts, jobs, and so on. Figure 2. Use the tabs to navigate to each major area of the SA client. Devices tab–Shows all your servers and lets you manage them Virtualization tab–Shows all your virtualization services, virtual machines, VM templates,