The following was written by Nathan Martell of the Systems Management Software Engineering team.
Dell just released version 8.0 of OpenManage Client Instrumentation (OMCI). What is OMCI and why do I care? OMCI is Dell’s light-weight instrumentation software for business client notebooks and desktops in the Dell Precision, OptiPlex and Latitude lines (for details on supported models, please see the releases on support.dell.com: download for x86, download for x64) and provides detailed asset information, BIOS Settings, and reporting of potential or current hardware or physical security problems with the system. All of this information is provided via CIM (WMI) so that OMCI does not require a local interface. Consoles such as ConfigMgr (Microsoft’s System Center Configuration Manager) can easily retrieve the information exposed by OMCI.
If you’re already familiar with OMCI, here is a list of what is new in this release:
· New namespace (//root/dcim/sysman)
· New CIM schema (version 2.17)
· Support for DMTF-developed standards-based profiles (as defined by the DASH effort lead be the DMTF)
If you’re not already familiar or would like more detailed information, there is additional documentation at the following link: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/software/smcliins/
Now, say you would like to know how many of the Dell business client systems in your company have support turned on in BIOS for WOL (Wake On LAN). How would you go about that daunting task? You could go visit each system reboot it into BIOS setup, check the setting and either note it down or change it right there. Or, if OMCI was installed on that system, you could simply feed a list of system names to the following our WakeOnLan Sample Scriptand get your answer in minutes. If you need to enable WOL, simply change a couple things in the script (uncomment the code) and you’re done.
Or maybe you would like to find out how many of the Dell business client systems in your company have TPM off in BIOS such that the OS is unable to see and manage the TPM. The Trusted Platform Module sample scriptprovides that info.
If you have ConfigMgr installed as well, it’s even easier. Simply add the mof extensions to enable the OMCI information to be gathered, create a report, and you’re done. More on that to follow.
If you have scripts that you find especially helpful, please post them to the sample scripts page on the Dell TechCenter community. Also, if you need any help in modifying scripts to the new OMCI version, please let us know.