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What is IBM Director
IBM Director is a comprehensive hardware management solution based on industry standards that works with a variety of platforms, operating systems and network protocols enabling systems administrators to manage heterogeneous environments.
This includes:

• Inventory of hardware features and settings
• System health notification

Proactive and automated systems management

It can be used on Intel and certain IBM eServer System p5®, iSeries, pSeries, System z9®, and zSeries servers that support Windows, Linux, AIX 5L, and i5/OS, including IBM eServer BladeCenter chassis, IBM eServer blade servers, IBM IntelliStation workstations, IBM Netvista, IBM ThinkCentre, IBM Thinkpad, IBM TotalStorage products, IBM SurePOS ™ point-of-sale systems, IBM TotalStorage® Network Attached Storage (NAS) products, and Lenovo systems.

Based on industry standards, IBM Director can be integrated with robust workgroup and enterprise management software from IBM (such as Tivoli), Computer Associates, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, NetIQ, and BMC Software.
IBM Director Agent is also supported on non-IBM Intel® or AMD based systems with SMBIOS 2.1 or later that meet the Intel Wired for Management (WfM) 2.0 specification.

Components

The IBM Director software has three main components (Server, Agent, and Console) which are deployed on systems according to their function:

• A system on which IBM Director Server is installed is called Management Server. The Management Server is at the core of this three tier-architecture as it is the one that initiates the tasks versus the managed systems. When you install the server component, the IBM Director Agent and Console are automatically installed as well. IBM Director Server requires a license. Every IBM xSeries server and eServer BladeCenter chassis comes with an IBM Director Server license. Customers can purchase additional IBM Director Server licenses for installation on non-IBM servers.
• Servers, workstations, desktop computers, and mobile computers with the IBM Director Agent installed become Managed Systems. Network devices, printers, or computers that have SNMP agents installed or embedded can also be managed as SNMP devices. As well, additional components such as platforms, chassis, and storage devices compliant to the SMI-S standard can be discovered and managed. Collectively, all managed systems, devices, and objects are referred to as managed objects.
• IBM Director Console is the graphical user interface (GUI) for IBM Director Server. Data is transferred between IBM Director Console and IBM Director Server through TCP/IP. Using IBM Director Console, systems administrators can conduct comprehensive systems management using either a drag-and-drop action or a single click. A system on which IBM Director Console is installed is called a Management Console. From it, a system administrator remotely accesses the management server and perform tasks on z-, i-, p- and xSeries platforms. When IBM Director Console is installed on a system, IBM Director Agent is not installed automatically. If users want to manage the system on which IBM Director Console (a management console) has been installed, they must install IBM Director Agent on that system also. Customers may install IBM Director Console on as many systems as needed. IBM Director includes an unlimited-use license for IBM Director Console. As an alternative to the GUI, systems administrators can also use a command-line interface (DIRCLI) to access, control, and gather information from IBM Director Server.

Agent Levels Explained

IBM Director Agent provides management data to IBM Director Server. Data can be transferred using TCP/IP, NetBIOS, or IPX network protocols. IBM Director Agent permits IBM Director Server to communicate with all managed systems on the network.
Version 5.10.x of the IBM Director agent features a three-tiered approach, designed to provide customers with the capability of running a reduced or no-memory footprint agent.
The following classification can be adopted:

• Level-0: Any system or device without IBM Director Agent or IBM Director Core Services installed and has SSH or DCOM/SMB running.
• Level-1: Any system with IBM CIM instrumentation installed. CIM instrumentation can be preloaded, as it is with AIX® or i5/OS, or it can be installed using the Level-1: IBM Director Core Services package.
• Level-2: Any system with IBM Director Agent installed, including System p5 and pSeries running AIX, IBM iSeries running IBM i5/OS, systems running Linux 32/64, systems running Windows 32/64, and Novell NetWare. This level is limited to 5,000 licenses.

Customers willing to only have a subset of features (i.e.: “basic” alerting features or Upward integration capabilities) can opt to do so without having to install the full featured Agent. As well, customers can easily promote the agents from one level to a higher one. This includes the capability of using IBM Director Server mass deployment capabilities to push an agent also to systems that did not contain any, therefore providing a source for savings on time and resources.

IBM Director with Director Agent V5.20.x is multilingual and supports English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Simplified, and Traditional Chinese. Some functions may not be fully translated and will display in US English.

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