Monitoring an HP ProLiant DL380 G7 without the bloat

Solution 1:

The drives 100% definitely WILL light up if they fail - regardless of what OS or additional software you've installed. That said I personally wouldn't say that their driver set is too 'bloaty' at all - in fact operating without them would be considered by many professionals as...well...unprofessional.

Solution 2:

There's no need to whine about it.

HP provide this level of insight because it is a premium brand. You'll be glad your system has ILO, IML logging and 40+ temperature sensors when you actually need to troubleshoot a problem.

As for simplified monitoring, download the Redhat specific tools by adding HP's Linux repo or seeking out the following individual tools:

• hpssacli - The CLI RAID control management tool.
• hponcfg - The CLI ILO management utility.
• hp-snmp-agents - Needed for email and SNMP support.
• hp-health - Monitors system health.

Solution 3:

Rather than downloading from HP the fairly large .tgz and .iso files (which can contain numerous additional useful drivers, tools, firmware upgrades etc you don't immediately need) you can configure a repository in yum (also offered for apt btw) on https://downloads.linux.hpe.com/ that allows you to selective install the HP specific management and monitoring tools using your package manager.

More explained here in this Q&A for instance.