ISM – upgrade to version 2.4.0

ISM: Fujitsu ServerView Infrastructure Software Manager

In portfolio of Fujitsu products you can find management and monitoring tool called Fujitsu Infrastructure Software Manager (ISM).

ISM can manage Fujitsu servers, storage and networking equipment, but also can have insights into virtual resources like Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct and VMware vSAN. It also can view some aspects of network traffic helping to keep network healthy and find congestion (both) on physical, and virtual level. In limited manner, this tool can also access and manage products from other vendors.

More details about ISM can be found here: https://www.fujitsu.com/fts/products/computing/servers/infrastructure-management/
You can find full compatiblity matrix for version 2.4.0 here:
https://docs.ts.fujitsu.com/dl.aspx?id=7a5b7562-f244-465f-9e62-0cccd3d29c88 (I hope link will not be broken any time in future).

Fujitsu has also launched (officially on 29th of March 2019) a free version of this tool called ISM Essential. Differences in funtionalities are depicted below

ISM Advanced and ISM Essential

Comparing to previous version (ISM v2.3.0b) in ISM v2.4.0 Fujitsu introduced some enhancements and fixes.

Let’s take a short look at them:

1) Extension of supported models/supported OS

  • The models listed below are supported as managed devices
    • Server
      PRIMERGY TX150 S7
      PRIMERGY TX200 S7
      PRIMERGY TX300 S7
      PRIMERGY TX150 S8
      PRIMERGY TX300 S8
      PRIMERGY TX1310 M1
      PRIMERGY TX1320 M1
      PRIMERGY TX1330 M1
      PRIMERGY TX2540 M1
      PRIMERGY TX2560 M1
      PRIMERGY TX1320 M2
      PRIMERGY TX1330 M2
      PRIMERGY TX2560 M2
      PRIMERGY TX1310 M3
    • Switch
      Arista 7000 Family
  • Extended the functions of existing supported models.
    Extended the profile items for PRIMERGY TX/RX/BX/CX
  • The following OS are added as supported OS for the managed server.
    VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5 U3
    VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7 U1
    SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP4

2) New Functions

  • Firmware Baseline
    Combined management for firmware versions of multiple components
    such as iRMC, BIOS, PCI cards, etc. is available.
  • Single Sign On (SSO) for iRMC
    For PRIMERGY (iRMC) which is monitored by ISM, by log in to ISM GUI,
    log in on the iRMC screen can be avoided.

3) Improvement/Extension of Functionalities

  • File upload from the GUI of ISM
    • Improvement of the search function
    • Added OS Policy
    • Linked with Trend Micro Deep Security
    • Automatic wiring in Network Map
      In Network Map, ports for storage can be automatically wired.
  • Improvement of Packet Analysis of Virtual Network
  • Display of End User License Agreement
    Improvement of functionalities for FUJITSU Software Infrastructure Manager
    for PRIMEFLEX:
  • Improvement of Rolling Firmware Update
    Firmware Rolling Update can be managed simply with the wizard.

4) Security and bug Fixes
Strengthened ISM security

More details about changes can be found in readme_eng.txt or readme.txt (for those who speak Japanese) inside installation package.

Upgrade

Because in Fujitsu LAB we have version 2.3.0b, we wanted to do in place upgrade.
Precedure requires some steps, which basic and first is (of course…) taking backup (or at least performing a snapshot of ISM VA).


1. Login using ssh client into ISM VA and issue a command: 

ismadm service stop ism
ismadm power stop

2. Take snapshot of ISM VA
3. Turn on VA.
4. Extract contents of archive.
Path to ISO image with actual update package may look like this: 

\Softwarepool Package 1213817\1213817\ISM2.4.0_upgrade_20190108171830\ISM2.4.0_upgrade_20190108171830.iso


5. Mount extracted ISO image and copy file:

<mounted drive letter>:\PROGRAMS\ISM\ISM240_S20190108-02.tar.gz

When upgrading from 2.3.0 or 2.3.b you have to use FTP client of your choice to transfer upgrade package to ISM appliance. Starting from 2.4.0 this should be also possible using GUI (refer to “Infrastructure Manager V2.4 – Operating Procedures” – CA92344-2708-01e.pdf).

6. Upload contents of the archive to ISM
Access “ftp:/// <IP address of ISM VA> Administrator/ftp” with FTP and store the upgrade files.
Check the names of the upgrade files in the readme.txt or readme_en.txt file saved in the upgrade program.
For information on how to forward files with FTP, refer to chapter “2.1.2 FTP Access.” of ISM manual

7. From the “local” console login to ISM-VA as an administrator

8. Stop ISM services
In order to execute upgrade, stop the ISM service temporarily.
Stop the ISM service according to the procedure described in “4.1.4 Startup and Stop of ISM Service.” 

ismadm service stop ism

9. Execute the upgrade command.
Execute the following command, specifying the upgrade file name.

ismadm system upgrade -file /Administrator/ftp/ISM240_S20190108-02.tar.gz

Upgrade can take up to 20 minutes.
As you can see in the logs it is not only upgrade of ISM packages, but also upgrade of OS including kernel.

10. Restart ISM services
After finish you’ll be prompted to restart ISM, so:

ismadm power restart

Wait for couple of minutest before logging into ISM (time depends on how big your ISM database is)
After that you may wish to check if ISM services are working properly:

ismadm service status
ISM services status