Configuring Data Center Expert integration

[EcoStruxureIT]

For IT Advisor on-premise installations only

NOTE: Hosted ITA integrates with IT Expert only. 

Configure the server connection to allow IT Advisor to communicate with the Data Center Expert server and receive device data and alarms.

It is possible to integrate with multiple Data Center Expert servers.

1. Select System Setup > External System Configuration.
2. Click Add server, and select Data Center Expert as the server type.
3. Type the Data Center Expert server identification, such as name, IP, port (80 or 443), and credentials.
4. To configure the data collection settings (see screenshot), set:
   • Time period for calculation of peak and average power values (Calculate power data based on the last).
   • Interval for asking Data Center Expert for updated device data (temperatures are collected).
   • Interval for asking Data Center Expert for updated power data. (This value does not include all kW measurements. Power data from rack PDUs is collected, whereas power data from cooling units is not.)
   • Full alarm synchronization every (how often IT Advisor synchronizes alarms and alarm statuses from Data Center Expert).
   • Retrieve sensors: If you select this, data from sensors such as temperature sensors are included. If you do not want to see the temperature sensor data in IT Advisor, do not select this.
   • Callback information to the IT Advisor server. This is used to tell Data Center Expert which ip/hostname to push alarms once they occur.
     • To Use Encryption a certification must be added to Data Center Expert. See Configuring a secure connection below.
   • Timeout settings for connection and response.
     • Stop trying to connect after: In case IT Advisor cannot connect to the Data Center Expert server, the user will get a warning after the specified amount of time, and data collection will resume when the connection has been restored.
     • Stop waiting for data after: IT Advisor will drop the connection after the specified time to avoid having a hanging connection.
5. When you have finished the steps in the wizard and the server has been added to the list of external systems, click Test to test the connection.

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Configuring a secure connection

If you want to ensure a secure connection for the data exchanged between the systems, follow these instructions to ensure the certificate is trusted on both Data Center Expert and IT Advisor servers.

1. Access the IT Advisor server management interface to access the certificate.
   1. Launch the Webmin web interface by typing the address of the IT Advisor server in a Web browser and click Server Configuration.
   2. Log on to Webmin using the user credentials created during the installation.
   3. In the Webmin interface menu, select System>Upload and Download.
   4. Open the Download from server tab.
   5. Browse to the certificate: /etc/isx-operations/ssl/certificate.crt and click Download.
   6. Open the .crt file with a text editor, such as Notepad.
   7. Select all and copy the contents (Ctrl+A/Ctrl+C).
      Alternatively, in a web browser:
      a. Type the server IP address and click the pad lock icon to the left to open View Site Information.
      b. Click Certificate Information.
      c. In the Connection tab, click Export and save as .pem.
      d. Open the file to copy the contents.
      For Mac, there's an extra Keychain step before exporting, see animation.
2. Make the certificate available to Data Center Expert.
   1. Launch Data Center Expert.
   2. Select System>Server Administration Settings>Server SSL Certificates...
   3. Click Add..., right-click and select Paste to paste in the contents of the .crt file (from above step), and click Add.
      The connection has been set up and the certificate is trusted on both servers.

Access and copy contents from certificate. This example uses Chrome on Mac.

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