Book Image

Implementing Cisco UCS Solutions

Book Image

Implementing Cisco UCS Solutions

Overview of this book

Cisco Unified Computing System(UCS) provides unique features for the contemporary data centres. Cisco UCS is a unified solution that consolidates computing, network and storage connectivity components along-with centralized management. Cisco UCS reduces TCO and improves scalability and flexibility. Stateless computing blade server's design simplifies the troubleshooting, and Cisco-patented extended memory technology provides higher virtualized servers consolidation results. A hands-on guide to take you through deployment in Cisco UCS. With real-world examples for configuring and deploying Cisco UCS components, this book will prepare you for the practical deployments of Cisco UCS data centre solutions. If you want to learn and enhance your hands-on skills with Cisco UCS solutions, this book is certainly for you. Starting with the description of Cisco UCS equipment options, this hands-on guide then introduces Cisco UCS Emulator which is an excellent resource to practically learn Cisco UCS components' deployment. You will also be introduced to all areas of UCS solutions with practical configuration examples. You will also discover the Cisco UCS Manager, which is the centralized management interface for Cisco UCS. Once you get to know UCS Manager, the book dives deeper into configuring LAN, SAN, identity pools, resource pools, and service profiles for the servers. The book also presents other administration topics including Backup, Restore, user's roles, and high availability cluster configuration. Finally, you will learn about virtualized networking, 3rd party integration tools and testing failure scenarios. You will learn everything you need to know for the rapidly growing Cisco UCS deployments in the real-world.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Implementing Cisco UCS Solutions
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Getting started with mezzanine adapters


A huge variety of mezzanine adapters, also known as Virtual Interface Cards (VICs), is available from Cisco for both B-series blade servers and C-series rack servers. Older adapters are of the fixed port type and are not optimized for contemporary virtualized server environments. There are some older third-party network cards also available as an option. Newer adapters are optimized for virtualization and can provide 128 or 256 dynamic virtual adapters. The number of virtual adapters is dependent on the VIC model. These virtual adapters can be configured as Ethernet (vNIC) or fiber channel (vHBA) devices. All virtualization-optimized VICs also support the VM-FEX technology. Our focus will be on those mezzanine adapters that are virtualization optimized.

VICs for blade servers

VICs are available in the form of a mezzanine card. All new VICs provide dynamic vNIC or vHBA interfaces for server-side connectivity.

VIC 1280

The specifications of VIC 1280 are as follows:

  • 256 dynamic vNIC (Ethernet) or vHBA (FC) interfaces

  • VM-FEX support for virtualized environments

  • Hardware failover without driver need

  • 80 Gbps network throughput

  • Mezzanine form factor

  • Compatible with UCS M2 (B230 and B440) and all M3 blade servers

VIC 1240

The specifications of VIC 1240 are as follows:

  • 256 dynamic vNIC (Ethernet) or vHBA (FC) interfaces

  • VM-FEX support for virtualized environments

  • Hardware failover without driver need

  • 40 Gbps network throughput with optional 80 GB throughput using optional port expander in the mezzanine slot

  • LoM form factor

  • Compatible with all M3 blade servers

VIC M81KR

The specifications of VIC M81KR are as follows:

  • 128 dynamic vNIC (Ethernet) or vHBA (FC) interfaces

  • VM-FEX support for virtualized environments

  • Hardware failover without driver need

  • 20 Gbps network throughput

  • Compatible with UCS M2 blade servers

VICs for rack-mount servers

VICs are available as PCIe cards as well. All new VICs provide dynamic vNIC or vHBA interfaces for server-side connectivity.

VIC 1225

The specifications of VIC 1225 are as follows:

  • 256 dynamic vNIC (Ethernet) or vHBA (FC) interfaces

  • VM-FEX support for virtualized environments

  • Hardware failover without driver need

  • 20 Gbps network throughput

  • Compatible with UCS M2 (C460 and C260) and all M3 rack-mount servers

VIC P81E

The specifications of VIC P81E are as follows:

  • 128 dynamic vNIC (Ethernet) or vHBA (FC) interfaces

  • VM-FEX support for virtualized environments

  • Hardware failover without driver need

  • 20 Gbps network throughput

  • Compatible with UCS M2 (C460 and C260) and all M3 rack-mount servers

Note

For a quick comparison of mezzanine card specifications, please visit http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps10277/prod_models_comparison.html#~tab-a.

Cisco VICs are also famous by their code name, Palo.