Managing network resources

IBM® Flex System Manager management software Network Control provides advanced network management functions for Flex System Enterprise Chassis network devices. Functions include discovery, inventory, network topology, health and status monitoring, and configuration of network devices. Network Control is a preinstalled plug-in that builds on base management software capabilities by integrating the launch of vendor-based device management tools, topology views of network connectivity, and subnet-based views of servers and network devices.

Network Control offers the following network-management capabilities:

• Discover network devices in your environment
• Review your network device inventory in tables or a network topology view
• Monitor the health and status of network devices
• Manage devices by groups: Ethernet switches, Fibre Channel over Ethernet, or Subnet
• View network device configuration settings, and apply templates to configure devices, including Converged Enhanced Ethernet quality of service (QoS), VLANs, and Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP)
• View systems according to VLAN and subnet
• Run network diagnostic tools like ping and traceroute
• Create Logical network profiles to quickly establish VLAN connectivity
• Simplified management of VM connections by configuring multiple characteristics of a network when virtual machines are part of a network system pool
• With management software VMControl, maintain network state (VLAN, ACLs) as a virtual machine is migrated (KVM)
• Management of virtual switches, including virtual Ethernet bridges
• Configuration of port profiles, a collection of network settings associated with a virtual system
• Automatic configuration of devices in network systems pools