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I am looking at managing a bunch of Dell Servers - I can use the Dell Management Console (which is made by Altiris) or the OpenManage IT Assistant which is made by Dell.

Anyone have any feedback on either tool?

HopelessN00b
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Rob Bergin
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  • I don't know if DMC (Dell Management Console) is free or not - it looks free. I think OpenManage is free. Free isn't a requirement but it certainly would be easier if it came as part of the Dell Server purchase. – Rob Bergin May 05 '09 at 20:47
  • an hp server? lol – Darren Kopp Jun 03 '09 at 05:28

4 Answers4

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I'm working on setting up DMC now. While it looks like it will be quite powerful once it's configured (reporting, patch management, client, switch and printer management), it is an order of magnitude more involved than IT Assistant. The server and client management base products are free, though there are a stack of plugins($$$) like helpdesk available that I'm yet to play with.

Also, if you have an environment larger than 500 nodes (server and client) you'll need a separate hardware SQL box (I'm sharing the SQL box with other databases, it's working well - we're around 700 nodes). You'll need a hardware box with at least 4GB of RAM for the DMC server as well, and they're not kidding. Add more if you can, it's not lightweight. I tried using a VM at first, that was painful.

Also, +1 on the above OS limitations, we're going ahead as we only have a few 2008 and x64 boxes, and they have stated that they expect to have support by year end.

While IT Assistant is simpler to install and use, it is being replaced by DMC, so you ultimately have no real choice going forward. It might be worth waiting for a service pack release if you can afford to stall that long, as this feels like a rushed re-badge at this point.

  • Yeah the setup of DMC is a pain. I am also saddened that IT Assistant is going away as I prefer this over DMC. – Chadddada Feb 15 '11 at 18:28
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I haven't used DMC (which is free) because it doesn't support Windows 2003 x64 or Windows 2008 (at all) as a host OS. We use IT Assistant to keep track of our Dell hardware and occasionally to push out firmware/driver updates. It is pretty easy to set up - just add your network ranges, discover your servers, and define queries to get the information you want.

We use HP Openview Network Node Manager to notify us of hardware warnings and failures via email and pager. IT Assistant is used only for asset management.

aharden
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Just a quick update on DMC - version 2.0 was released in late 2010 and it now supports both Windows 2008 R2 and 64 bit. Actually the 2.0 version supports only 2008 R2 64-bit, so if you need a 32-bit version you should stick to DMC 1.x

Peter Tsai
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Zenoss Core has a nice zenpack for Dell server snmp traps(free!) www.zenoss.com I run it in a Centos VM on ESX.

XTZ
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