Introducing the F5 Management Pack for Operations Manager

This release introduces the F5 Management Pack™ version 1.0 for System Center Operations Manager™ (F5 Management Pack). The F5 Management Pack enables you to monitor your F5 Networks devices using Microsoft's System Center Operations Manager 2007. You can view the complete health of your organization’s F5 Networks devices and services with the F5 Management Pack's inclusive monitoring environment. With the features of this version 1.0 release, you can perform several new tasks:

• Discover BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager and Global Traffic Manager devices on your network.
• Generate and save reports to monitor F5 Networks systems and historical data.
• Monitor the states and thresholds of your F5 Networks objects and devices.
• Display the Diagram View or the List View of the F5 Networks devices and objects on your network, including pools, nodes, and monitors.
• Use the F5 Management Pack's PowerShell commands, the Operations Console, or the command line to configure and manage your F5 Management Pack.
• Configure and schedule events and alerts.

Recommended system requirements and supported browsers

Platform requirements

The F5 Management Pack requires Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 SP1, running on a platform that meets the following specifications

• CPU: Two (2) Quad Core Intel Xeon processors
• RAM: 8 GB
• Hard Drive: 100GB 15,000 RPM HDD
• NIC: 1000 BASE-T
• Other: CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive

Software requirements

The minimum software requirements for this release are:

• Microsoft Windows Server® 2003 Enterprise Edition Service Pack 2. (Both AMD64 and x86 environments are supported.)
• Internet Information Server (IIS)
• Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0
• Microsoft .Net Framework 3.0
• Microsoft SQL Server® 2005 Enterprise or Standard with Reporting Services enabled (with Service Pack 2 or Service Pack 3)
• Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 SP1
• Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 Reporting Server
• All Windows updates provided by Microsoft for Windows Server 2003 SP2

Important: Reporting Services must be installed for both Operations Manager and SQL Server to exercise functions available in the Management Pack.

Browser requirements

The supported browser for the Web Console view for F5 Management Pack^™ for Operations Manager^™ is:

• Microsoft^® Internet Explorer^™, version 6.0 or later

User Account Requirements

Before installing and running the F5 Management Pack for System Center Operations Manager, ensure that you have access to the following user accounts.

• Installation account - You use this account to install the F5 Management Pack. This account should have domain administrator privileges.
• Service account - You use this account to run the F5 Monitoring Service. This account must be in a group that is specified in the Operations Manager Administrators in the Operations Manager Console under Administration->Security->User Roles->Operations Manager Administrators. We recommend that you create a separate Active Directory group for this purpose if you have not done so already.

Supported platforms

This release supports the following platforms:

• All platforms that run BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager version 9.3.1 or later, and BIG-IP Global Traffic Manager version 9.3.1 or later.

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Installing and licensing the software

The following instructions explain how to install the version 1.0 release of the F5 Management Pack onto existing systems running Microsoft^® System Center Operations Manager^™ 2007 SP1. The software for F5 Management Pack is available on F5 DevCentral (http://devcentral.f5.com/), the F5 user community. To download the software, log on to DevCentral, and create a free account.

Installing the F5 Management Pack for Operations Manager

This procedure describes how to install the F5 Management pack through the Windows Server 2003 graphical interface.

1. From Windows Explorer, navigate to the folder where you downloaded the F5Networks.ManagementPack.Setup.exe file from DevCentral.
2. To start the installation, double-click the file.
   The F5 Networks Management Pack Setup Welcome screen opens.
3. On the Welcome screen, click Next to move to the SQL Configuration screen.
4. On the SQL Configuration screen, for SQL-Server, type the name of the SQL Server, then select the SQL credentials option.
5. For SQL credentials, type the User name and Password for accessing the SQL server.
6. Ensure that the Enable autogrow for Microsoft Operations Manager databases option is checked.

   Note: The Enable Autogrow option is enabled by default. This setting allows the Operations Manager databases to automatically increase in size when nearing capacity. We recommend that you enable this option unless you plan to manually configure the autogrow feature.

    

7. Click Next to move to the Configure Service Account screen.
8. On the Configure Service Account screen, for User name and Password, type the account credentials for the service account.
9. For Domain, select the Active Directory domain that contains this user account information.
10. Click Next to move to the F5 management Pack is Ready to Install screen.
11. Click OK to start the installation.
    The system starts the installation, and prompts you when the installation is complete.
     

Note: If the installation was not successful, the system prompts you to check for errors in the installation log file, setup.log, located in the C:\Program Files\F5 Networks\Management Pack\Logs folder

Configuration changes

We recommend that you enable the Microsoft autogrow feature in order to successfully install and run the F5 Management Pack. The Installation Wizard will prompt you to enable autogrow, as this feature is disabled by default in System Center Operations Manager.

F5 PowerShell Support for the F5 Management Pack

The F5 Management Pack makes use of Microsoft Windows command line shell and scripting language, PowerShell. The F5 Management Pack service’s functionality is enhanced by employing its own PowerShell commands in addition to the PowerShell commands you can already use with Operations Manager. The following list represents the PowerShell Support commands for the version 1.0 release of the F5 Management Pack:

• Start-F5.Discovery - Starts the discovery of an F5 device.
  • -Async - Run the discovery asynchronously.
  • -HostName - Hostname or IP address to discover.
  • -Credentials - Username/Password combo wrapped inside a Credential object.
  • -Force - Do not require confirmation of the start discovery request.

• Stop-F5.Discovery - Stops discovery of an F5 device or devices.
  • -IPAddress - A single IP address or an array of IP addresses you wish to stop discovery on.
  • -Force - Do not require confirmation of the discovery stop request.

• Get-F5.ActiveDiscovery - Displays the current discovery progress.
  • -AccessIP - A single IP address or an array of IP addresses to report back progress for.
  • -ShowAddressOnly - Lists all current discoveries by IP only (no progress details).

• Get-F5.Connection - Gets a list of currently discovered and connected F5 devices.
  • -AccessIP - A single IP address or an array of IP addresses to get connection details for.

• Ping-F5.Subnet - Get a ping response from all F5 devices on the specified subnet.
  • -BaseAddress - Base IP address to start the subnet scan from.
  • -Mask - Subnet mask to scan by.

• Update-F5.CollectionRules - Forces the update of the collection rules for an F5 device specified by an override of the F5 Management Pack inside Operations Manager.
  • -Force - Do not require confirmation of the update request.

• Update-F5.ThresholdRules - Forces the update of the threshold rules for an F5 device specified by an override of the F5 Management Pack inside Operations Manager.
  • -Force - Do not require confirmation of the update request.

By default, the PowerShell commands should be installed and enabled. You can use them by opening up the standard Operations Manager PowerShell console. If the PowerShell support is unavailable, you can install the Snapin manually by opening up an Operations Manager Windows PowerShell command window, and typing the following command :

Add-PSSnapin "F5.Networks.ManagementPack"

To get a list of PowerShell commands that are supported by the F5 Management Pack and their definitions, type the following command:

Get-Command -PSSnapin "F5.Networks.ManagementPack"

You can use the PowerShell commands listed to perform basic tasks without using the graphical user interface in the Operations Console. For example, to initiate the discovery process, in the PowerShell command window, you type the following command:

Start-F5.Discovery $deviceIp $creds -force -ErrorVariable

The system then prompts you to enter the information necessary to discover an object, as you would from the Discovery Wizard in the Operations Console view.

To view the devices that are currently discovered on your F5 Management Pack, you type the following command in the PowerShell command window:

Get-F5.Connection

Known issues

The following items are known issues in the current release.

Incorrect MAC address displayed (CR10069)
The incorrect MAC address is displayed in the Detail View screen associated with a discovered device on the F5 Management Pack.

Virtual server and pool members with shared IP addresses may report same inconsistent status (CR116060)
If two or more managed BIG-IP Global Traffic Manager and BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager devices feature virtual servers and pool members that share the same IP addresses, then the F5 Management Pack system may display the same inconsistent status report for these network objects. You can receive accurate health status by running the Refresh Health Status server task.

Multiple discovery tasks may fail (CR115367)
If you run a discovery task to discover multiple devices by running one task, then immediately running another discovery task may cause the second discovery task to become unresponsive, even when the first task finishes. To avoid this scenario, ensure that all discovery tasks are complete before initiating a new discovery task.

Outdated status reports for heavily used managed devices (CR115940)
If a managed device has a complex configuration and is in a heavy traffic condition, the F5 Management Pack may not accurately display status updates. To receive updated health status for a network object, run the Refresh Health Status server task for that object.

Monitoring event log may contain certain warnings (CR115101)
The F5 Monitoring event log may contain certain warnings. EventID 704 warns of unknown metrics, but you can ignore this warning as the system is not designed to monitor these particular metrics; EventID 705 warns of missing configuration items in a parent/child relationship, but the system does not support configuration updates for interfaces of trunks of type 1; EventID 806 occurs when the system cannot contact the device, and you can re-discover the device to work around this issue.

Remove or Remove All task causes unresponsiveness (CR116209)
If you run a Remove or Remove All task, the F5 Monitoring Service may become unresponsive. To work around this scenario, use Task Manager to terminate the ctrlptsvc.exe process.

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Contacting F5 Networks

For additional information, please visit http://www.f5.com.

Copyright © 2009, F5 Networks, Inc., Seattle, Washington.  All rights reserved. 
F5, F5 Networks, the F5 logo, BIG-IP, 3-DNS, Acopia, Acopia Networks, Application Accelerator, AskF5, Application Security Manager, ASM, ARX, Data Guard, Enterprise Manager, EM, FirePass, FreedomFabric, Global Traffic Manager, GTM, iControl, Intelligent Browser Referencing, Internet Control Architecture, IP Application Switch, iRules, Link Controller, LC, Local Traffic Manager, LTM, Message Security Module, MSM, NetCelera, OneConnect, Packet Velocity, SSL Accelerator, SYN Check, Traffic Management Operating System, TMOS, TrafficShield, Transparent Data Reduction, uRoam, VIPRION, WANJet, WebAccelerator, and ZoneRunner, are trademarks or service marks of F5 Networks, Inc., in the U.S. and other countries, and may not be used without F5's express written consent.

This product protected by U.S. Patents 6,374,300; 6,473,802; 6,970,933; 6,505,230; 7,409,440.