It was delivered as part of the iDRAC (Express and Enterprise licenses, and vFlash SD card feature) starting
with the 11th generation of Dell PowerEdge servers. On 12th and 13th generation of PowerEdge servers,
the vFlash feature is included with the iDRAC Enterprise license, so you need not separately license vFlash
with Lifecycle Controller 2.0 and later. The 12th and 13th generation of PowerEdge servers of Dell use
only Express or Enterprise licensing.
The Lifecycle Controller management capabilities are partitioned into distinct areas and represented by
the Dell Common Information Model (DCIM) profile specifications that provide comprehensive details
about each manageability feature or capability. These features may be free, partially licensed, or fully
licensed. Also, the accessibility of a feature is defined by the credentials provided with the WS-MAN
request and maps to the user-assigned privilege credentials, such as administrator- or read-only access.
What is the Web Service API?
Web Services-Management (WS-MAN) is a Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) open standard,
defining a Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) — based protocol for managing servers, devices,
applications, and various web services. WS-MAN provides a common way for systems to access and
exchange management information across the IT infrastructure.
DMTF is an industry organization that develops, maintains, and promotes standards for systems
management in enterprise IT environments. The DMTF data model is complex and typically requires
multiple transactions to accomplish simple operations such as specifying a user name and password, or
giving administrator privileges to a user account. To reduce the number of transactions, Lifecycle
Controller also offers a Dell data model for management that is based on an attribute model.
Where can the Lifecycle Controller API be used from?
Lifecycle Controller-Remote Services is a standards-based interface that enables consoles to integrate,
for example, bare-metal provisioning and one-to-many operating system deployments for remotely
located servers. Dell’s Lifecycle Controller takes advantage of the capabilities of both Lifecycle Controller
GUI and Lifecycle Controller-Remote Services to deliver significant improvement and simplification of
server deployment.
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