This course covers monitoring, managing and configuring your edge-to-core network with the HPE Intelligent Management Center software platform (HPE IMC). This course teaches how HPE IMC is installed, how devices are added through discovery, and then how they can be viewed. The course also goes through configuration management and explains how HPE IMC is used to manage firmware and configuration on devices. It covers how alarms are received and processed in HPE IMC, along with trap management. Then it looks at the Virtualization Resource Management (VRM) component against an ESXi host. This course teaches Access Control List (ACL) management, Network Traffic Analyzer (NTA), Compliance and Intelligent Policy Center, report management, and VXLAN management. The hands-on lab exercises utilize HPE IMC working with edge devices including HPE Comware, Aruba AOS and CX and Cisco switches. This course is approximately 40 percent lecture and learning activities, and 60 percent hands-on lab activities.

This course is the combination of:

• HQ7C1S: HPE Intelligent Management Center - Managing and Monitoring your Network
• H61N0S: HPE Intelligent Management Center - Securing Network and Performance Management

Audience

This course is for network administrators and engineers who plan to deploy, manage, monitor and configure their network using the HPE Intelligent Management Center software platform.

Prerequisites:

Prior to this course, students should have some networking experience to get the most from this training course. They should:

• Understand networking
• Understand IPv4 addressing
• Have some knowledge of the CLI commands on HPE Aruba Switches (AOS and CX), HPE Comware v7 and Cisco (this knowledge is beneficial, but not required)
• Understand file architecture on HPE Comware and Aruba, including Telnet/SSH, and start up and saved configurations
• Understand SNMP configuration
• Understand traps and how they are configured on the switches

Course objectives

By the end of this class, you should be able to:

• Understand the HPE IMC installation process and how to initially access HPE IMC
• Understand how to add devices into HPE IMC using auto discovery
• Understand the different views in HPE IMC and how they can be utilized 
• Understand the Configuration Centre and how it can be used for configuration management
• Understand how alarms and traps are generated in HPE IMC
• Understand how HPE IMC can be used to manage, monitor and configure VLANs.
• Understand how HPE IMC can be used for performance management
• Understand how HPE IMC can be used for virtualization resource management
• Understand how to troubleshoot HPE IMC
• Implement and deploy Access Control Lists (ACLs) using HPE IMC ACL management
• Configure and use the HPE IMC Network Traffic Analyzer module
• Configure and deploy Compliance Policy Center configuration
• Create and schedule reports
• Configure and deploy static VXLAN tunnels using HPE IMC VXLAN Management

HQ7C1S: HPE Intelligent Management Center - Managing and Monitoring your Network 

Detailed course outline

Module 1: HPE Intelligent Management Center Introduction 

• Introduction
• HPE Intelligent Management Center design
• HPE vLabs access

Module 2: Installation and Initial Access 

• Processes on the HPE Intelligent Management Center server
• How to login to HPE Intelligent Management Center
• Licensing structure
• Difference between an HPE Intelligent Management Center operator and an HPE Intelligent Management Center user
• Operator groups and how they can be mapped to operators
• How to install an HPE Intelligent Management Center module
• How to configure display tiling

Module 3: Adding Devices 

• How to configure devices before you add into HPE Intelligent Management Center
• How to configure access service templates
• How to use “auto discovery” to add devices to HPE Intelligent Management Center
• How to use “add device” to add devices to HPE Intelligent Management Center
• How to use “check access settings” and interpret the output
• How to install and use DBman

Module 4: Trap Management 

• How traps are received and processed by HPE Intelligent Management Center
• How to view and understand traps in HPE Intelligent Management Center
• How traps are filtered in HPE Intelligent Management Center
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center is used to create a trap definition
• How to import MIBS in HPE Intelligent Management Center
• Escalate a trap (event) to an alarm

Module 5: View Management 

• Access and manage the network topology
• Access the IP topology view
• Appreciate the difference between the IP view and IP topology view
• Create a custom view
• Create a port group view
• Create a custom view
• Create a data center topology

Module 6: Configuration Management 

• How to backup and baseline firmware
• How to backup, baseline, and compare configurations
• How to schedule backups

Module 7: Alarms and Events 

• Understand the alarm window information
• How alarms are acknowledged and recovered
• How to edit the home screen
• How to cause an event to become an alarm

Module 8: VLAN Management 

• How to manage global and device VLAN information 
• Know the steps to deploy a VLAN

Module 9: Performance Management 

• Describe the types of performance metrics that a network administrator can monitor using HPE Intelligent Management Center
• Analyze the performance characteristics being tracked by HPE Intelligent Management Center
• View, interpret, and configure performance widgets in the HPE Intelligent Management Center home window 
• Describe the difference between global index settings and individual device monitoring settings
• Configure individual device monitoring settings
• Use topology maps to access device performance metrics
• Configure topology maps to display specific performance metrics
• Describe the difference between global index data and real time monitoring data
• Configure real time performance data

Module 10: Virtualization Management 

• An introduction to virtualization
• Add virtual hosts to HPE Intelligent Management Center
• Use Virtual Resource Manager (VRM)
• An introduction to managing virtual devices in VRM

Detailed lab outline

Lab 1: Accessing HPE vLabs and HPE Intelligent Management Center 

• Connect to the HPE vLabs
• Verify SQL readiness
• Launch HPE Intelligent Management Center

Lab 2: Installation and Initial Access 

• Log in to HPE Intelligent Management Center via the web browser
• Add and manage operator accounts
• Install an HPE Intelligent Management Center module and verify its installation
• Configure display tiling

Lab 3: Adding Devices 

• Configure the switches and servers for SNMP and SSH
• Use the auto discover option in HPE Intelligent Management Center to discover devices
• Manually add devices using HPE Intelligent Management Center
• Convert HPE Comware and Aruba switches from SNMPv2 to SNMPv3 using configuration templates
• Perform a backup of the HPE Intelligent Management Center server with a remote SQL database

Lab 4: View Management 

• Access and manage the network topology.
• Use the network topology for MSTP information
• Understand all of the different features and functions in network topology
• Access the IP topology view
• Appreciate the difference between the IP view and IP topology view
• How a custom view can be used in HPE Intelligent Management Center
• How a port group can be used in HPE Intelligent Management Center
• How batch operations can be used in HPE Intelligent Management Center
• How network assets can be used in HPE Intelligent Management Center
• How data center topology can be used in HPE Intelligent Management Center

Lab 5: Configuration Management 

• How HPE Intelligent Management Center can be used to import firmware into the software
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center can be used to create a firmware baseline
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center can be used to restore firmware to baseline
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center can be used to take a configuration backup
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center can be used to create a configuration baseline 
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center can be used to compare configurations
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center can be used to create an auto backup plan
• Back up the software of the switches
• Define baselines and compare switch configurations
• Create a backup plan

Lab 6: Alarms and Events 

• Alarm terminology
• Difference between real time alarms and all alarms 
• How alarms can be exported out of the HPE Intelligent Management Center database
• How to add alarm widgets to the home screen
• How alarms appear in the network topology window
• How to use HPE Intelligent Management Center for edge ports
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center manages and processes traps—both system and user-defined

Lab 7: VLAN Management 

• Manage global and device VLAN information
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center can be used to create new VLANs
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center can be used to create new Layer 3 VLANs
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center can be used to create access, trunk and hybrid interfaces
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center displays VLANS in network topology
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center can be used in batch deploy functions
• How VLAN deployment tasks are used

Lab 8: Performance Management 

• How HPE Intelligent Management Center can be used to examine and tune performance values
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center creates performance reports using index values
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center creates performance at a glance
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center creates a performance view
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center uses the global performance options
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center creates a real time monitor graph versus historic graph
• How HPE Intelligent Management Center uses performance monitoring in the network topology window
• Introduction to the Application Performance Manager module

Lab 9: Virtualization Management 

• Add an ESXi host as an ICMP device
• Create a new SOAP template that is applied to the ESXi host
• Apply the new SOAP template and test
• Use HPE Intelligent Management Center to view the ESXi host, virtual machines, vSwitch and Port Groups

Lab 10: Troubleshooting HPE Intelligent Management Center 

• Scenario 1
• Scenario 2
• Scenario 3
• Scenario 4
• Scenario 5
• Scenario 6

H61N0S: HPE Intelligent Management Center - Securing Network and Performance Management

Detailed course outline

Module 1: ACL Management 

• Describe the HPE IMC ACL management functionality 
• Configure ACL using HPE IMC ACL management
• Deploy and test ACL usage

Module 2: Network Traffic Analyzer (NTA) 

• Describe sFlow protocol
• Describe Network Traffic Analyzer module functionalities
• Configure NTA analysis tasks

Module 3: Compliance Center and Intelligent Policy Center. 

• Describe HPE IMC Compliance Center functionality 
• Configure HPE IMC Compliance Center tasks

Module 4: Reporting 

• Explain HPE IMC reporting possibilities 
• Generate reports using HPE IMC reporting

Module 5: VXLAN Management 

• Explain VXLAN management possibilities 
• Configure VXLANs using VXLAN management module

Detailed lab outline

Lab 1: ACL Management 

• Manually create an ACL for a device
• Verify ACL operations
• Setup syslog and verify ACL logging.

Lab 2: Network Traffic Analyzer 

• Deploy the NTA component
• Add HPE Comware to NTA
• Create a “Traffic Analysis Task”
• Perform host session monitoring
• Perform interface monitoring

Lab 3: Compliance Center 

• Disable syslog on the HPE Comware switch and create configuration backup
• Prepare compliance policy
• Prepare and run check task

Lab 4: Reporting 

• My real time reports
• Custom reports
• Scheduled reports

Lab 5: VXLAN Management 

• Set up switches
• Set up devices in remote locations
• Manage VXLAN VTEPs and create tunnels
• Verify switch configurations and observe VXLAN topology