Enhancements in version 1.1

BladeLogic Portal 1.1 includes the following enhancements:

Provisioning operations

You can now run Provisioning operations from the portal. A Provisioning operation performs an unattended installation of an operating system on a server. In addition, it can run post-install procedures to configure the newly provisioned server by installing software, running scripts, and modifying server settings.

A simple wizard helps you set up a Provisioning operation. The Provisioning wizard shares many common steps with the wizard you use for defining all other operations in the portal.

Currently, you can only use the Provisioning wizard to deploy VMware operating systems using virtual guest packages (VGPs) set up in BMC Server Automation. There are two approaches to setting up a VMware operation: a simple three step procedure and another procedure that allows more extensive user input.

For detailed information about Provisioning operations, see Creating a Provisioning operation.

Inventory

You can now search your server inventory, select a collection of target servers, and obtain detailed information about a particular target or perform an operation on the target by launching an operation wizard.

When searching server inventory, you can browse, perform a simple text search, or search all servers using complex sets of conditions based on server properties.

For detailed information about the actions you can take using inventory, see Searching server inventory and taking actions on search results.

BladeLogic Dashboard

BladeLogic Portal now provides an integrated link to BladeLogic Dashboard. 

BladeLogic Dashboard provides a view into your BMC Server Automation environment and offers tips for optimizing a BladeLogic installation. The dashboard is not a monitoring tool. Instead, it is a mechanism for quickly assessing the health of all BladeLogic system components. BladeLogic Dashboard can also show savings your organization is experiencing by using BladeLogic. 

In this release, a separate installation of the dashboard is necessary.

For details about configuring the link to BladeLogic Dashboard, see Managing sites.