Getting started

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Refer to this section for some best practices and recommendations to configure TSA.

Before you begin

Go through the instructions specified in the following sections.

About this task

It is recommended that an iterative approach be used in defining discovery scope sets and their associated credentials. Each iteration should add a limited number of scope sets, followed by a discovery and transmission of the collected information to IBM. Review the TSA report on IBM Support Insights to ensure data is collected for the devices within the scope sets. If any expected devices are not in the report, use the steps found in Debug of discovery problems to resolve any issues. Once the TSA report contains the devices that are expected, another iteration can be attempted until the entire intended network is discovered.
Note: It is best practice to save a backup of your TSA configuration after significant additions or modifications are made to scopes or credentials. For more information, see section Backup and Restore.

Procedure

  1. Prepare the devices for discovery. For any necessary device and credential configuration requirements, see section Configuration for device discovery.
  2. For HMC Dynamic Scope Sets, complete the following steps:
    1. Add the IP addresses into the appropriate scope sets or scopes. If any firewalls exist between TSA and the discovery devices, make sure that the appropriate ports are opened in the firewall to allow the discovery to succeed. For information about the ports that must be accessible for each platform type, see section Firewall Settings.
    2. Add the IP addresses of the HMC devices in the HMC Dynamic Scope Set page. Use the same HMC Dynamic Scope Set for redundant HMCs.
    3. In the HMC Dynamic Scope Set page, add the credentials for the HMCs.
    4. Select which LPAR types that you want to discover. Provide credentials for each type.
      Note: You may select the LPAR types to discover when the dynamic scope set is created, or you can add the LPAR types in a later iteration by editing the dynamic scope set.
    5. (Optional) Use the Test function on the HMC Dynamic Scope Set page to verify that the credentials are defined properly and can be used to establish a connection to the HMCs or its LPARs.
  3. For VMWare Dynamic Scope Sets, complete the following steps:
    1. Add the IP addresses into the appropriate scope sets or scopes. If any firewalls exist between TSA and the discovery devices, make sure that the appropriate ports are opened in the firewall to allow the discovery to succeed. For information about the ports that must be accessible for each platform type, see section Firewall Settings.
    2. Add the IP addresses of the VMware vCenter® Servers.
    3. Add the IP addresses of any VMware ESXi™ hosts that are not managed by a VMware vCenter® Server.
    4. Add the credentials for the VMware vCenter® Servers and ESXi instances in the VMware Dynamic Scope Set page.
    5. Select the virtual machine types that you want to discover. Provide credentials for each type.
      Note: You may select the LPAR types to discover when the dynamic scope set is created, or you can add the LPAR types in a later iteration by editing the dynamic scope set.
    6. Optional: Use the Test option on the VMware Dynamic Scope Set page to verify that the credentials are defined properly, and can be used to establish a connection to the VMware vCenter® Servers and ESXi instances, and its virtual machines.
  4. For General Discovery Scopes, complete the following steps:
    1. Add the IP addresses into the appropriate scope sets or scopes. If any firewall exists between TSA and the discovery devices, ensure that the appropriate ports are opened in the firewall to allow the discovery to succeed. For information about the ports that must be accessible for each platform type, see section Firewall Settings.
    2. Create the necessary credentials.
    3. Optional: Use the Test function on the New Discovery Credentials page to verify that the credential is defined properly and can be used to establish a connection with a target device.
  5. Run a full discovery to scan the IP addresses added for this iteration.
  6. Run a transmission to upload the data to IBM.