HPE Intelligent Management Center - Managing and Monitoring your Network

By the end of the course, you should be able to:

• Understand the HPE Intelligent Management Center installation process and how to initially access HPE Intelligent Management Center
• Understand how to add devices into HPE Intelligent Management Center using auto discovery
• Understand the different views in HPE Intelligent Management Center and how they can be utilized
• Understand the Configuration Centre and how it can be used for configuration management
• Understand how alarms and traps are generated in HPE Intelligent Management Center
• Understand how HPE Intelligent Management Center can be used to manage, monitor and configure VLANs.
• Understand how HPE Intelligent Management Center can be used for performance management
• Understand how HPE Intelligent Management Center can be used for virtualization resource management
• Understand how to troubleshoot HPE Intelligent Management Center
  

Detailed course outline

Module 1: HPE Intelligent Management Center Introduction

• Introduction
• HPE Intelligent Management Center design features, requirements, and modules
• HPE vLabs access

Module 2: Installation and Initial Access

• Processes on the HPE Intelligent Management Center server
• How to login to HPE Intelligent Management Center
• Licensing structure
• Difference between an HPE Intelligent Management Center operator and an HPE Intelligent Management Center user
• Operator groups and how they can be mapped to operators
• How to install an HPE Intelligent Management Center module
• How to configure display tiling

Module 3: Adding Devices

• How to configure devices before you add them into HPE Intelligent Management Center
• How to configure access service templates
• How to use “auto discovery” to add devices to HPE Intelligent Management Center
• How to use “add device” to add devices to HPE Intelligent Management Center
• How to modify device setting in HPE Intelligent Management Center
• How to use “check access settings” and interpret the output
• How to install DBman and backup HPE Intelligent Management Center

Module 4: Trap Management

• How traps are received and processed by HPE Intelligent Management Center
• How to view and understand traps in HPE Intelligent Management Center
• How traps are filtered in HPE Intelligent Management Center
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center is used to create a trap definition
• How to import MIBS in HPE Intelligent Management Center
• Escalate a trap (event) to an alarm

Module 5: View Management

• Access and manage the network topology
• Access the IP topology view
• Appreciate the difference between the IP view and IP topology view
• Create a custom view
• Create a port group view
• Create a data center topology

Module 6: Configuration Management

• How to backup software, define baseline software version and compare
• How to backup, baseline, and compare configurations
• How to schedule backups

Module 7: Alarms and Events

• Understand the alarm window information
• How alarms are acknowledged and recovered
• How to edit the home screen
• How to cause an event to become an alarm
• Know how HPE Intelligent Management Center can work with edge ports
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center manages and processes MIBs

Module 8: VLAN Management

• How to manage global and device VLAN information
• Know the steps to deploy a VLAN

Module 9: Performance management

• Describe the types of performance metrics that a network admin can monitor using HPE Intelligent Management Center
• Analyze the performance characteristics being tracked by HPE Intelligent Management Center
• View, interpret, and configure performance widgets in the HPE Intelligent Management Center home window
• Describe the difference between global index settings and individual device monitoring settings
• Configure individual device monitoring settings
• Use topology maps to access device performance metrics
• Configure topology maps to display specific performance metrics
• Describe the difference between global index data and real-time monitoring data
• Configure real-time performance data|

Module 10: Virtualization Management

• An introduction to virtualization
• Adding virtual hosts to HPE Intelligent Management Center
• Using Virtual Resource Manager (VRM)
• An introduction to managing virtual devices in HPE Intelligent Management Center

Module 11: Troubleshooting HPE Intelligent Management Centert

• Troubleshoot HPE Intelligent Management Center using various scenarios
• Know where to look
• And know what to look for

Detailed lab outline

Lab Activity 1: Accessing HPE vLabs and HPE Intelligent Management Center

• Connect to HPE vLabs
• Connect to switches, servers and PC
• Verify SQL readiness
• Launch HPE Intelligent Management Center

Lab Activity 2: Installation and Initial Access

• Log into HPE Intelligent Management Center via the web browser.
• Add and manage operator accounts
• Install an HPE Intelligent Management Center module and verify its installation
• Configure display tiling and widgets on the home window

Lab Activity 3: Adding Devices

• Configure the switches and servers for SNMP and SSH access
• Use the auto discover option in HPE Intelligent Management Center to discover devices
• Manually add devices using HPE Intelligent Management Center
• Convert Comware and Aruba switches from SNMPv2 to SNMPv3 using configuration templates
• Validate the SNMP, SSH and Telnet settings using HPE Intelligent Management Center
• Perform a backup of the HPE Intelligent Management Center along with the SQL database

Lab Activity 4: Trap Management

• View received SNMP Traps in HPE Intelligent Management Center
• Search for traps from a specific device
• Get more details about any traps in HPE Intelligent Management Center
• Search for traps from devices over a time range
• Understand the trap filters HPE Intelligent Management Center uses

Lab Activity 5: View Management

• Access and manage the network topology.
• Use the network topology for MSTP information
• Understand all the different features and functions in network topology
• Access the IP topology view
• Appreciate the difference between the IP view and IP topology view
• How a custom view can be used in HPE Intelligent Management Center
• How a port group can be used in HPE Intelligent Management Center
• How batch operations can be used in HPE Intelligent Management Center
• How network assets can be used in HPE Intelligent Management Center
• How data center topology can be used in HPE Intelligent Management Center

Lab Activity 6: Configuration Management

• How HPE Intelligent Management Center can be used to import firmware into the software library
• How to create a firmware baseline
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center can be used to restore firmware back to baseline
• How to backup the configuration on all switches
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center can be used to create a configuration baseline
• How to compare various configurations
• How to back up the software of the switches
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center can be used to create an auto backup plan

Lab Activity 7: Alarms and Events

• Understand alarm terminology
• Understand the difference between real-time alarms and all alarms
• How alarms can be exported out of the HPE Intelligent Management Center database
• How you can add alarm widgets to the home screen
• How alarms appear in the network topology window
• How to use HPE Intelligent Management Center for edge ports
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center manages and processes both system and user defined traps

Lab Activity 8: VLAN Management

• Manage global and device VLAN information
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center can be used to create new VLANs
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center can be used to create new Layer 3 VLANs
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center can be used to create access, trunk and hybrid interfaces
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center displays VLANS in network topology
• How VLAN deployment tasks are used
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center can be used in batch deploy functions

Lab Activity 9: Performance Management

• How HPE Intelligent Management Center can be used to examine and tune performance values
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center creates performance reports using index values
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center creates performance at a glance
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center creates a performance view
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center uses global performance options
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center creates a real time monitor graph versus historic graph
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center uses performance monitoring in the network topology window
• Introduction to the Application Performance Manager module

Lab Activity 10: Virtualization Management

• Add an ESXi host to HPE Intelligent Management Center
• Create a new SOAP template that is applied to the ESXi host
• Apply the new SOAP template and test
• Use HPE Intelligent Management Center to view the ESXi host, virtual machines, and vSwitch

Lab Activity 11: Troubleshooting HPE Intelligent Management Center

• Scenario 1: Verify SQL database reachability and operation
• Scenario 2: Error message while trying to install a new module
• Scenario 3: Verify HPE Intelligent Management Center version and modules installed
• Scenario 4: Determine what may be causing slow performance in HPE Intelligent Management Center
• Scenario 5: Verify prior HPE Intelligent Management Center operator activity
• Scenario 6: Diagnose why a switch backup is failing

Learners should have some networking experience to get the most from this training course. They should:

• Understand networking, along with IPv4 addressing
• Have some knowledge of the CLI commands on HPE Aruba Switches (AOS and CX), Comware v7 and Cisco (this knowledge is beneficial, but not required)
• Understand file architecture on Comware and Aruba, including Telnet/SSH, and start up and saved configurations
• Understand SNMP configuration
• Understand traps and how they are configured on the switches