Understanding How Hardware Gets Under Cassatt Active Response Management

Intended for use with Cassatt Active Response Standard Edition, Premium Edition and Data Center Edition V5.1.

This article describes how Cassatt Active Response manages nodes, and the methods for getting hardware under Cassatt Active Response management. It assumes you understand the basics of Cassatt technologies for hardware management as described in Integrating Cassatt Active Response Into Your Enterprise: Automation at Your Own Pace.

Power control: a key feature

Power control is a key feature that allows Cassatt Active Response to manage large numbers of application nodes in your data center. Whether your Cassatt implementation is just for node power management, or for utility computing, the ability to power servers on and off, is the foundation of automation in Cassatt Active Response.

Because power control is the foundation of Cassatt Active Response automation, you'll find that getting hardware under Cassatt Active Response management involves just as much thought about the power controllers as it does the servers connected to them. That is, you'll need to configure power controllers with usernames and passwords, and configure specific parameters (like IP or MAC addresses) so Cassatt Active Response can turn the nodes on and off. In short, you'll need to know the insides of your power controllers in a way that you probably don't need to in your operations today.

Power controller types

Cassatt's open approach to hardware management means that we keep increasing support for new power controllers—allowing you to use more and more of your existing hardware. Cassatt Active Response supports the following types of power controllers:

• Integrated power controllers (Dell DRAC, HP iLO, IBM BCMM, etc.)
  Most modern, low-cost servers incorporate onboard power control as part of their remote management features. The remote management component (including power control) is a standalone computer inside the chassis of the application node; for blade configurations, it is inside the blade enclosure. These standalone management components operate whether or not the application node itself is powered on, allowing Cassatt Active Response to access the components to programmatically start up and shut down their associated nodes.
• External power controllers (APC, Baytech, etc.)
  Nodes without integrated power controllers can be plugged into standalone power control units called external power controllers (sometimes known as Power Distribution Units (PDUs)); Cassatt Active Response can manage external power controllers just as efficiently as nodes with integrated power controllers.

For a detailed list of recommended nodes and power controllers by vendor and model, see Recommended Hardware: Application Nodes and Power Controllers.

Methods for adding hardware

The following choices are available for adding hardware to the Cassatt Active Response Controller.

• Manual – All editions
  Available in all editions, the manual method of getting hardware under Cassatt Active Response management is accomplished using two simple wizards.
  
  
  • "New Multi-Node Power Controllers" – this wizard allows you to add multi-node power controllers (for example, external power controllers and blade enclosures) in preparation for associating nodes with them in the New Node wizard. Just like the New Node wizard, this wizard allows you to add the multi-node power controllers one-at-a-time, or import multiple power controllers using a comma separated (.csv) file.
  • "New Node" – this wizard allows you to add/edit a single node and associate one or more power controllers to the nodes, or use a comma separated file and import multiple nodes with their associated power controllers.
    
• Automatic - Premium and Data Center Editions only
  When turned on, the automatic discovery feature allows Cassatt Active Response to find application nodes with integrated power controllers that are configured for DHCP and cabled into the Cassatt Active Response network. Automatic discovery is most beneficial when adding new hardware; in particular, when adding blade servers with centralized management into your data center. For details, see Understanding Automatic Discovery and Inventory.

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