The deployment method and the management of a hardware support manager plug-in are determined by the respective OEM.

Several of the major OEMs develop and supply hardware support managers. For example:
  • Dell

    The hardware support manager that Dell provides is part of their host management solution, OpenManage Integration for VMware vCenter (OMIVV), which you deploy as an appliance.

  • HPE

    The hardware support managers that HPE provides are part of their management tools, iLO Amplifier and OneView, which you deploy as appliances.

  • Lenovo

    The hardware support manager that Lenovo provides is part of their server management solution, Lenovo XClarity Integrator for VMware vCenter, which you deploy as an appliance.

  • Hitachi

    The hardware support manager that Hitachi provides, Hitachi Unified Compute Platform Advisor, is infrastructure automation and management software for all Hitachi converged, hyperconverged, and integrated systems, which you deploy as an appliance.

  • Cisco

    The hardware support manager that Cisco provides is integrated with Cisco Intersight Infrastructure Service, which is part of Cisco Intersight and you activate the hardware support manager from within the Cisco Intersight SaaS-based management platform. No additional appliances are required on your vCenter Server instance.

You can find the full list of all VMware-certified hardware support managers in the VMware Compatibility Guide at https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?deviceCategory=hsm.

Deploying and Configuring Hardware Support Managers

Regardless of the hardware vendor, you must deploy the hardware support manager appliance on a host with sufficient memory, storage, and processing resources. Typically, hardware support manager appliances are distributed as OVF or OVA templates. You can deploy them on any host in any vCenter Server instance.

Note: If vCenter Server is configured with a proxy for internet access, the proxy must be able to reach any hardware support manager registered with that vCenter Server instance. You must either assign the hardware support manager a private IP address within the 10.x.x.x range, which is automatically exempt from proxy use, or enable a direct access to the registered hardware support manager by configuring the proxy settings with an exception for its IP address.

After you deploy the appliance, you must power on the appliance virtual machine and register the appliance as a vCenter Server extension. You might need to log in to the appliance as an administrator. Each hardware support manager might register with only one or multiple vCenter Server systems.

A vCenter Server plug-in user interface might become available in the vSphere Client after you deploy a hardware support manager appliance, but the hardware support manager might also have a separate user interface of its own. For example, OMIVV, iLO Amplifier, and Lenovo XClarity Integrator for VMware vCenter all have a vCenter Server plug-in user interface, which helps you configure and work with the respective hardware support manager.

Each hardware support manager has its own mechanism of managing the actual firmware packages and making firmware add-ons available for you to choose.

The successful integration between the hardware support manager and vSphere Lifecycle Manager might require a specific configuration of the hardware support manager. For example, with OMIVV, you must first create a connection profile. Then, you must create a cluster profile and associate it with a cluster before you can add a firmware add-on from Dell to the image for that cluster.

For detailed information about deploying, configuring, and managing hardware support managers, refer to the respective OEM-provided documentation.