Making it Easy - HP ProLiant Server Setup

[#1]

Meet guest blogger Brad Kirby. Brad is a Group Marketing Manager in the Platform Management team at Hewlett-Packard.

Now that your customer has purchased an HP ProLiant server and needs to get it up and running with Microsoft Windows Server 2008, they may ask a number of things: How do they configure the storage and network settings? Do they have the right device drivers? And, of course, since they want a manageable server, how do they set up monitoring on the system?

HP makes it simple to set up a ProLiant server by offering two products that eliminate the guesswork from the deployment process: First, the Easy Set Up CD for the 100 series, and second, the Smart Start CD for the 300 and 500 series. These programs make it easy to set up the operating system correctly the first time—with the right storage and network settings—so that your server is manageable right out of the box. You can even customize your configuration settings so that you can launch the utilities you need to set RAID settings, to set network teaming, to update the BIOS settings, and to configure the management that you want to put on the system.

We've also made it easy to load the Windows operating system and all of its utilities on a USB key. In other words, all you have to do is unpack the server, insert the USB key, boot up the system, answer a few questions—and the Smart Start utilities will automatically configure the hardware. Then, the Windows Unattended Installation feature will automatically install the OS.

Then, when it's up and running, it's ready for management. The Easy Set Up or Smart Start CD process has deployed all of the necessary agents on that system to make it manageable under Systems Insight Manager. You can also enable it to send an email message to yourself or to the sysadmin on site to call HP whenever there's a hardware failure like a drive failure, a memory failure, or power supply failure. Of course, these things happen rarely, but this gives you peace of mind in knowing that you can take care of your customers as quickly as possible and prevent unplanned downtime.

Simply put, by using the Easy Set Up or Smart Start CD, you're spending less time on configuration, more time training your customer on the new server, less time searching for the right drivers and BIOS updates, and more time providing assistance.

We hope you’ve enjoyed learning more about how to set up an HP ProLiant Server using the Easy Set Up or Smart Start CDs.  Click the links to learn more about ProLiant Servers or the Microsoft license choices that will work best for your situation.  Also, find out more about guest blogger Brad Kirby by viewing his biographical video.  If this has been helpful, please join the Coffee Coaching community follow us on our blog,  Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or LinkedIn.