What is meant by Cisco UCS?
The Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) is an (x86) structure and middle server platform composed of computing hardware, virtualization support, switching fabric, and administration software added in 2009. The thought at the back of the gadget is to decrease the whole fee of possession and enhance scalability by way of integrating the one of a kind elements into a cohesive platform that can be managed as a single unit. Just-In-Time deployment of sources and 1:N redundancy can be configured with UCS systems.
Few Important things to discuss:
•Computing: The computing thing of the UCS is handy in two versions: the B-Series (a powered chassis and full and/or half of slot blade servers), and the C-series for 19-inch racks (that can be used with cloth interconnects). The compute hardware managed via the UCS Manager software program on the Fabric Interconnects can be B-Series (blades), C-Series (rackmount) or a mixture of the two.
Both structure elements use fashionable components, along with Intel processors and DIMM memory. The servers are marketed with converged community adapters and port virtualization. Around 2010, prolonged reminiscence science multiplied the quantity of reminiscence sockets that can be related to a single reminiscence channel in some models.
•Virtualization: Cisco UCS helps quite a few hypervisors which include VMware ESX, ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer and others. VMware Virtualization is supplied through a partnership with VMware and makes use of a model of that company’s ESXi. Unlike the VMware Workstation software, ESX and ESXi run without delay on the device hardware except for any different software program (called Bare Metal), and grant the crucial hypervisor features to host various visitor running structures (such as Windows or Linux) on the bodily server.
Guest running structures are restrained to 255 GB of vRAM and eight digital processors in vSphere 4.x, upgraded to 1 TB of vRAM and 32 vCPUs in vSphere 5.0. Additionally, the Cisco UCS Virtual Interface Cards include VM-FEX technological know-how that offers digital machines direct access to the hardware for accelerated performance and community visibility.
ALSO REFER: How to Configure Cisco UCS Management?
•Networking: The Cisco 6100 or 6200 Series swap (called a “Fabric Interconnect”) offers network connectivity for the chassis, blade servers and rack servers linked to it via 10 Gigabit and Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCoE). The Fabric Interconnects are derived from the Cisco Nexus 5000 and run NX-OS as properly as the UCS Manager software. The FCoE issue is critical for connection to SAN storage, given that the UCS device blade servers have very little neighborhood storage capacity. Cisco presently produces the following series.
The Fabric Interconnect can similarly join to a couple of Fabric Extenders, Port Extenders the use of VNTag to the Fabric Interconnects, permitting up to a hundred and sixty servers to be managed through one Fabric Interconnect (or two in Active-Active failover).
•Management: Management of the device gadgets is dealt with through the Cisco UCS Manager software program embedded into the 6100/6200 sequence Fabric Interconnect, which is accessed by using the administrator thru a frequent browser such as Internet Explorer or Firefox, or a Command line interface like Windows PowerShell or programmatically via an API. Virtual machines can be moved from one bodily chassis to another, purposes may additionally be moved between digital machines, and administration can also even be performed remotely from an iPhone using SiMU – Simple iPhone Management of UCS.
In addition to the embedded software, directors might also additionally manipulate the gadget from VMware’s vSphere. The Cisco Integrated Management Controller (CIMC) is additionally used to configure and manipulate C-Series stand-alone servers. The CIMC can additionally be used to control B-Series blades in addition to the UCS Manager utility if configured.
In November 2012, Cisco introduced the addition of UCS Central which extends administration throughout a couple of domains of UCS and as many as 10,000 servers. UCS Central extends the identical mannequin-based, open API strategy installed with UCS Manager.
•Stateless Computing: A key gain is the thought of Stateless Computing. Each compute node has no set configuration. MAC addresses, UUIDs, firmware and BIOS settings for example, are all configured on the UCS supervisor in a Service Profile and utilized on the servers. This allows for regular configuration and ease of repurposing. A new profile can be utilized inside a number of minutes.
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Servers:
There are two kinds of UCS servers:
C Series – “Pizza box” servers which seem like your common rack set up server.
B Series – Blade servers which slide into the slots of a UCS chassis.
There are two sorts of B Series servers – 1/2 width and full width.
Management: Both server collections join to Fabric Interconnects (FIs). The FIs have the UCS Manager software program established on them. This is the software program which is used to administer the servers.
Note: An exception to this is when a C-Series server operates in “Standalone” mode.
Fabric Interconnects (FIs): As nicely as offering the administration interface for your servers, FIs additionally furnish community and storage connectivity for each server series.
Note: An exception to this is when a C-Series server operates in “Standalone” mode.
Operating System: You’re free to set up any supported working machine of your choosing. For example, you should deploy Windows Server 2012 immediately on a server, or, you may want to install ESXi on the server and run Windows 2012 as a VM.
Stateless Computing: When a typical server fails, you may also be required to exchange it with the same hardware in any other case the OS and/or purposes may additionally now not work correctly. Further to this, you may additionally be required to spoof special identifiers such as the unique server’s MAC address. With UCS servers, the server’s whole identification is saved in a profile which can be transferred to any different server. This capability means that if a server fails, changing it is as convenient as making use of the profile to a new server.
Special Characteristics of Cisco UCS:
With Cisco UCS, long past are the days of having to use an obnoxious firmware update CD or BIOS device to replace servers. You no longer want to configure every BIOS/HBA/boot coverage one at a time. Through the advent of policies, pools, and profiles you can automate the complete provisioning of both a blade (B Berries) or rackmount server (C Series). Management for one or many blades or rackmounts is carried out through a single pane of glass interface.
The splendor of Cisco UCS is its abstraction of configuration from bodily hardware. Cisco accomplishes this by using growing a thought of a provider profile. Inside that carrier profile is the character of a server – from MAC addresses to BIOS settings. This features you a few key things:
Eliminates inconsistencies: Everything is enforced with the aid of coverage and pools. This capacity of one server will be precisely the same as the subsequent – with the exception of consumables such as MAC addresses and WWPN.
- Eases addition of new equipment:
Have a new server? Pop a new blade in and spin up a carrier profile for it. It’ll flash the firmware to your exact level, burn in your configuration, and you can be putting in an working gadget inside minutes.
- Hardware failure:
In the historical days, if a pizza container failed, you’d have to soar through hoops to get it lower back online. All these settings want to be reapplied. If it’s a fiber channel HBA, you have to rezone and remap your storage. With UCS, you partner the historic provider profile with the new blade and you can boot properly returned up like nothing ever happened.
What are Hardware upgrades?
Same thing. Pop in a new blade, put the historical carrier profile on it, and you’re off to the races.
Cisco UCS is additionally a splendor in a rack. Fewer cables, higher airflow, and it tends to seem to be much less like spaghetti and extra like a work of art. You can add extra blades and up to 20 chassis each time you want. One blade or 160, administration is the identical – you can scale out even further with the use of Cisco UCS Central.
Conclusion:
The purpose of a UCS product line is to simplify the variety of units that want to be connected, configured, cooled and secured and supply directors with the capability to control the entirety via a single graphical interface.
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