Dell’s OpenManage Systems Management Tools & Documentation (OM-SMTD) is a set of tools on a bootable DVD that is used to prepare and install a Dell server. This past week I needed to download the latest version to use on a Dell T410 that was not shipped with the OpenManage DVD . I used the OM-STD to configure the Raid drives and to install SBS 2011. I hope these notes will help you.

First, because of the size of the OM-SMTD , Dell splits the .iso file into 2 separate files (xxx.001 and xxx.002), which you then have to combine together using a simple DOS command. The reason for this is that there’s a 2GB file limitation when downloading files from a browser,  and there have been reports of file corruption when downloading very large files via a nbrowser.

But we won’t be using our browser, because it is far easier to use a FTP client to download these files rather than using a browser interface to the Dell’s Support web page. The reason is two-fold: it’s easier using the FTP client, and more importantly, using a browser to download extremely large files has been known to cause corruption.

So grab your favorite FTP client and point it to ftp.dell.com using anonymous login. Drill down to the secure\sysman sub folder. There you will find the download files for every version of SMTD! I know, control your emotions. I wanted version 6.5.0, so the two files I needed were: OM_6.5.0_SMTD_A01.iso.001 and OM_6.5.0_SMTD_A01.iso.002. Eachof these files are over 1GB in size, so your Internet speed will dictate how long it will take to download the files. I would suggest creating a folder on your hard drive, such as C:\OM and store the two files there.

Once they are downloaded, open up a command prompt (Start >cmd) and enter the following DOS commands, which will combine (concatenate) the two iso files into a single iso file:

1. cd \OM
2. copy /b OM* OM650.iso

Finally, use your favorite image burner utility to burn the .iso file to a DVD. I personally use a free product called ImgBurn.

Good luck!

The Microsoft SBS team has released the first public beta of the Office 365 Integration Module, which interfaces with SBS 2011 Essentials. More information plus a link to download the beta can be found at the SBS Official Blog site (click here).

The SBS Internet Management Wizard will offer a choice of several companies to purchase an SSL certificate. Self0signed certificates, which we used often with SBS 2003 installations, is a thing of the past. SSL certificates are fairly inexpensive these days. Check out GoDaddy’s $12.99 certificate .

And be sure to check out Third Tier’s excellent article on Setting up Autodiscover with SBS 2011!

SBS2011 comes with Sharepoint 2010, and with this great product comes a little gotcha: updates to Sharepoint may start throwing out errors and alerts (see KB 2580174).

The solution, as mentioned in the above KB article, is that it is now necessary to run the ‘psconfig’ utility after applying Sharepoint updates.