Ops Centre Newbie - Getting Started.

Question

Hi experts,
We’ve recently made the decision to utilize Ops Centre to patch, provision OS and firmware throughout our UNIX (Solaris & Linux) estate. Whilst I understand the importance to undertake the relevant training, at this point, it’s looking unlikely as the current asking price for such tuition is too expensive.
I’ve managed to install and configure Ops Centre using the available online Oracle documentation onto a Solaris 10 - SPARC (Oracle VM) platform taking extra care that all pre-requisites outlined in the site preparation guide were met. I opted for the limited configuration during the install (no asset discovery, proxy deployment, storage library etc) but did decide on connected mode and it seems to be working fine. I’ve deployed the co hosted proxy controller and have managed to perform a custom asset discovery on a particular subnet.
To help us further reach our goals, I’d appreciate if the following questions could be answered in detail (were possible).
1. In order to apply patches to assets, it’s my understanding that each asset needs to be managed hence each asset must have the agent installed?
2. What purpose do storage libraries serve and based on our requirements (as above), do we require any?
3. We have many servers on many different subnets. From my understanding, a proxy controller is required per subnet. Is that the case? Or can the amount of proxy controllers be limited by DHCP or alike for example?
4. If a proxy controller is required per subnet, then it’ll be far more advantageous for us to deploy proxy controllers into virtual platforms (preferably Oracle Linux). Would this be possible?
Thanks,
D.

Answer 1

1. In order to apply patches to assets, it’s my understanding that each asset needs to be managed hence each asset must have the agent installed?Correct.
2. What purpose do storage libraries serve and based on our requirements (as above), do we require any?Storage Libraries are primarily for virtual guest storage. zones, ldoms underlying storage.
Not to be confused with the Software Libraries, which can store the patches, firmware images, OS isos, flash archives, etc.
You can always add both Storage and Software libraries later if you want.
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E18440_01/doc.111/e18416/chapter_softwarelib.htm#BABBDJFH
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E18440_01/doc.111/e18416/chapter_storagelib.htm#sthref42
3. We have many servers on many different subnets. From my understanding, a proxy controller is required per subnet. Is that the case? Or can the amount of proxy controllers be limited by DHCP or alike for example?For OS Provisioning, yes. Or a proxy may be connected to and server multiple subnets for OS provisioning, too. For patch and firmware, not required, as long as ports are open between the proxy and managed assets.
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24628_01/doc.121/e21484/network_reference.htm#autoId5
4. If a proxy controller is required per subnet, then it’ll be far more advantageous for us to deploy proxy controllers into virtual platforms (preferably Oracle Linux). Would this be possible?Yes. Only restriction (not listed in your requirements though) is that Linux proxies cannot OS Provision OVM Server for Sparc systems (LDOM Control Domains), and in general Solaris OS Provisioning is a little bit limited because the Linux proxies don't have the JET framework built in.
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E18440_01/index.htm