Information Systems:IBM Systems Director
IBM Systems Director (ISD) is a zero cost server management program that was distributed by IBM when they still sold x86 server hardware. ISD is no longer marketed, supported or maintained by IBM as of June 2016. ISD is used at uniPHARM as of the writing of this article, however, it is a dead product because there are not going to be any further updates, patches or support from IBM. ISD is installed on the Thermoprofile server and it does take up a significant portion of that server's memory and processor time. The URL for ISD is:
- https://thermoprofile.unipharm.local:8422/ibm/console
- Username: Administrator
- Password: NewVisionIT
ISD has many useful features, however, because of the design of the software most are not used. The features being used are all involved in displaying information about the IBM servers and what they are doing. ISD can show all of the different hardware components that are contained within a server as long as ISD can collect the inventory of a server in a daily task that runs at 9AM. For example, ISD can show what type of RAID controller is present in a server and how many hard drives are attached. It can also show the network configuration of a server even if there are other more efficient ways of getting that info. The most advanced feature of ISD that is actually being used is that it can display real time graphs of CPU, memory, hard drive and network activity that allow one to visually see what is happening with our servers.
ISD has been setup to alert I.S. staff when a hardware failure is detected on any of the IBM servers. This function is also present on servers that have an IMM or RSA chip. It is important to understand that ISD works by talking to an agent program installed on all of the IBM servers except for the Power8/HMC. If the agent detects a problem and reports it to ISD then ISD will pass that on in an email alert. If the IMM or RSA chip also sends an email alert then the hardware failure can be considered legitimate. There may be discrepancies where ISD will generate an alert and the IMM/RSA won't or vice versa. In those cases, the best thing to do is manually check the physical server. All the IBM servers have indicator lights on pullout panels in the front bezel that show real physical problems. The software in ISD and in the IMM/RSAs is not 100% reliable or consistent because it was programmed by IBM employees.
ISD also has within its inventory the ability to connect to the HMC, the Power8 and the LPARs contained within the Power8. It can display what is present but ISD cannot do any of the management that the HMC does. Same situation with network switches, ISD can see them and display the most basic of info but it cannot do anything useful with those objects.
Over time, ISD's usefulness will decrease as the current in production servers age out and are replaced by something else. At some point in the future, ISD can be turned off and removed. It had a great deal of potential to be very good software but as usual, IBM blessed it with an awful user interface and overly complex code.