Cisco UCS: Provisioning and Management of Servers

Here is the summary:

• The speaker is tasked with provisioning 50 servers, some of which are assigned to a vCenter environment, database servers, Exchange servers, and more. • Cisco UCS (Unified Computing System) addresses the complexity of this task by allowing for centralized management and automation of server provisioning and configuration. • Cisco UCS consists of various product lines, including B-series (blade servers), C-series (rackmount servers), S-series (storage server platform), and X-series (modular compute system). • Fabric interconnects are built on Cisco Nexus switches and are used to manage the Cisco UCS environment, providing features such as network configuration, hardware configuration, and server management. • Fabric interconnects are optional for C-series and S-series deployments but mandatory for B-series and X-series deployments. • Initially, UCS Manager was used to manage the UCS environment, but it is being replaced by Cisco Intersight, a cloud-based management platform. • Cisco Intersight provides features such as automated updates, compatibility checks, and connected TAC support, as well as multi-UCS domain management through a single pane of glass. • Intersight Workload Optimizer is a feature that monitors applications running in the UCS environment and provides suggestions for resource optimization and bottleneck resolution. • Cisco UCS is built on the concept of "stateless computing," where servers have no identifying characteristics until they are configured through the fabric interconnects. • The "three Ps" of Cisco UCS are pools, policies, and profiles, which are used to configure and manage servers. • Pools are used to create groups of resources such as MAC addresses, UUIDs, and IP addresses. • Policies are used to define configuration settings such as BIOS configuration, boot order, and device priority. • Profiles are used to bundle pools and policies together to create a complete server configuration. • Templates are used to create a "cheat code" for UCS, allowing for rapid deployment of multiple servers with similar configurations. • In the demo, the speaker shows how to create pools, policies, and profiles, and how to use templates to deploy multiple servers with similar configurations. • The speaker also demonstrates how to use Cisco Intersight to manage the UCS environment, including creating service profiles and deploying them to multiple servers. • The demo environment is using a UCS emulator, and the speaker notes that the DevNet sandbox is available for testing and learning about UCS.

• In UCS Manager, unassociated service profiles can be assigned to servers, and the server will be rebooted after the association, which is a disruptive process.

• The Fabric Service Manager (FSM) tab in UCS Manager shows the status of the service profile creation and association process.

• Once the service profile is created and associated with a server, the server can be booted up with a virtual CD or DVD of the ESXi installer for VMware.

• In Intersight, the UCS environment is managed, and the dashboard shows the system, targets, and services, including the Cloud Orchestrator and Workload Optimizer.

• Targets in Intersight refer to the UCS devices added to the platform, and new targets can be claimed and added through a claim process.

• The Infrastructure Service in Intersight manages UCS devices, including chassis and servers, and allows for the launch of UCS Manager from within Intersight.

• In Intersight, servers can be managed through the UCS Manager interface, which is accessible from within Intersight.

• In Intersight managed mode, domain profiles are used to configure fabric interconnects, and templates are used to create server profiles.

• Profiles, pools, and policies are still used in Intersight managed mode, but with additional features and policies.

• Templates in Intersight can be used to create multiple server profiles at once, and policies can be created or selected during the template creation process.

• Derived profiles in Intersight are created from templates and can be customized before creation.

• Intersight is the recommended platform for managing UCS environments, as UCS Manager will be phased out in the next couple of years.