Dell Compellent Enterprise Manager is a separate piece of software, which comes with every Compellent storage array deployment and allows you to monitor, manage, and analyze one or multiple arrays from a centralized management console.
Probably the most valuable feature of Enterprise Manager for an average user is its historical performance statistics. From the Storage Center GUI you can see only real-time data. Enterprise Manager is capable of keeping statistics for up to a year. And can obviously do a multitude of other things, such as assist with capacity planning, allow you to configure replication between production and DR sites, generate reports or simply serve as a single pain of glass interface to all of your Compellent storage arrays.
Enterprise Manager installation does not include an embedded database. If you want to deploy EM database on an existing Microsoft SQL database or install a new dedicated Microsoft SQL Express instance, you need to do it manually. The following guide describes how to install Enterprise manager with Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Express.
SQL Server Authentication
During installation, Enterprise Manager will ask you for authentication credentials to connect to the SQL database. In SQL Server you can use either the Windows Authentication Mode or Mixed Mode. Mixed Mode allows both Windows authentication and SQL Server authentication via local SQL Server accounts.
For a typical SQL Server setup, Microsoft does not recommend enabling SQL Server authentication and especially with the default “sa” account, as it’s seen as insecure. So if you have a centralized Microsoft SQL Server in your network you’ll most likely be using Microsoft Authentication. But for a dedicated SQL Server Express database it’s fine to enable Mixed Mode and use SQL Server authentication.
Make sure to enable Mixed Mode during SQL Server Express installation and enter a password for the “sa” account.
SQL Server Network Configuration
Enterprise Manager uses TCP/IP to connect to the SQL database over port 1433. TCP/IP is not enabled by default in SQL Server Express, you will need to enable it manually.
Use SQL Server Configuration Manager, which is installed with the database, and browse to SQL Server Network Configuration > Protocols for SQLEXPRESS > TCP/IP. Enable TCP/IP on the Protocols tab and assign port 1433 to TCP Port field in IPAll section.
Make sure to restart the SQL server to apply the settings and you should now be able to connect Enterprise Manager to the database.
If you get stuck, refer to Dell Compellent Enterprise Manager Installation Guide and specifically the section “Prepare a Microsoft SQL Server Database”. This guide is available in Dell Compellent Knowledge Center.
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