Implementing Cisco UCS Solutions - Second Edition

Implementing Cisco UCS Solutions - Second Edition

by Anuj Modi, Farhan Nadeem, Prasenjit Sarkar
Released April 2017
Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
ISBN: 9781786464408

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Book description

Discover how to simplify your data center architecture, reduces costs, and improve speed and agility with Cisco UCS at your side

About This Book

  • Learn how to reduce equipment and operating costs, consolidate resources, and automate data center processes

  • Eliminate manual, time-consuming tasks that were traditionally required to connect servers in data centers

  • A practical hands-on guide that will help you to deploy servers and application stacks with ease

    • Who This Book Is For

    This book is for system, network, and storage administrators who are responsible for Cisco UCS deployments. You need to have basic knowledge of server architecture, network, and storage technologies.

    What You Will Learn

  • Set up your Lab using Cisco UCS Emulator

  • Configure Cisco UCS, LAN, and SAN connectivity

  • Create and manage Service profiles

  • Perform various tasks using UCS

  • Backup and restore Cisco UCS configuration

  • Test various Cisco UCS scenarios

  • Manage and automate multiple domains

    • In Detail

    Cisco Unified Computer System (UCS) is a powerful solution for modern data centers and is responsible for increasing efficiency and reducing costs.

    This hands-on guide will take you through deployment in Cisco UCS. Using real-world examples of configuring and deploying Cisco UCS components, we’ll prepare you for the practical deployments of Cisco UCS data center solutions. If you want to develop and enhance your hands-on skills with Cisco UCS solutions, this book is certainly for you.

    We start by showing you the Cisco UCS equipment options then introduce Cisco UCS Emulator so you can learn and practice deploying Cisco UCS components. We’ll also introduce you to all the areas of UCS solutions through practical configuration examples.

    Moving on, you’ll explore the Cisco UCS Manager, which is the centralized management interface for Cisco UCS. Once you get to know UCS Manager, you’ll dive deeper into configuring LAN, SAN, identity pools, resource pools, and service profiles for the servers. You’ll also get hands-on with administration topics including backup, restore, user’s roles, and high availability cluster configuration. Finally, you will learn about virtualized networking, third-party integration tools, and testing failure scenarios.

    By the end of this book, you’ll know everything you need to know to rapidly grow Cisco UCS deployments in the real world.

    Style and approach

    This hands-on book takes a tutorial-based approach to help you understand the practical methodologies and deployment of Cisco UCS components.

    Table of contents

    1. Preface
      1. What this book covers
      2. What you need for this book
      3. Who this book is for
      4. Conventions
      5. Reader feedback
      6. Customer support
      7. Downloading the color images of this book
      8. Errata
      9. Piracy
      10. Questions
    2. What's New with Cisco UCS
      1. UCS architecture overview
      2. Changes in the third-generation UCS
      3. Physical architecture of UCS
      4. Fabric Interconnects
        1. UCS third-generation 6332
        2. UCS third-generation 6332-16UP
        3. UCS second-generation 6248UP
        4. UCS second-generation 6296UP
      5. Fabric Extenders
        1. UCS third-generation Cisco 2304 IOM
        2. UCS second-generation Cisco 2208XP IOM
        3. UCS second-generation Cisco 2204XP IOM
        4. Cisco Nexus 2348UPQ 10GE Fabric Extender
      6. Blade server chassis
        1. Chassis front
        2. Chassis back
        3. Environmental requirements
      7. B-Series blade servers
        1. Blade servers
          1. B200 M3/M4
          2. B260 M4
          3. B420 M3/M4
          4. B460 M4
        2. C-Series rack servers
          1. C220 M3/M4
          2. C240 M3/M4
          3. C460 M2/M4
      8. Mezzanine adapters
        1. VICs for blade servers
          1. UCS third-generation VIC 1380
          2. UCS third-generation VIC 1340
          3. UCS second-generation VIC 1280
          4. UCS second-generation VIC 1240
        2. VICs for rack-mount servers
          1. UCS third-generation VIC 1387
          2. UCS third-generation VIC 1385
          3. UCS second-generation VIC 1285
          4. UCS second-generation VIC 1225
      9. UCS storage servers
        1. UCS C3206
        2. UCS C3106
      10. UCS M-Series modular servers
        1. M4308
        2. M2814
        3. M1414
        4. M142
      11. Cisco UCS Mini
        1. 6324
      12. Summary
    3. Installing Cisco UCS Hardware
      1. Installing UCS hardware components
      2. Installing racks for UCS components
      3. Installing UCS chassis and components
        1. Installing blade servers
          1. Installing and removing CPUs
          2. Installing and removing RAM
          3. Installing and removing internal hard disks
          4. Installing mezzanine cards
          5. Installing UCS chassis and rack rails
          6. Installing blade servers into a chassis
          7. Installing rack servers
      4. Installing Fabric Interconnects
      5. Cabling - Fabric Interconnects and Fabric Extenders
        1. Fabric Extenders - Fabric Interconnect cabling topology
        2. IOM - Fabric Interconnect physical cabling
      6. Power capacity and power plug types
        1. Non-redundant
        2. N+1 redundant
        3. Grid-redundant
      7. Cisco SingleConnect technology
      8. Summary
    4. Setting Up a Lab Using Cisco UCS Emulator
      1. Configuring Cisco UCS Emulator
        1. System requirements
        2. Hypervisor prerequisites
        3. Installing UCSPE on VMware Workstation Player using the ZIP file
        4. Installing UCSPE on VMware Workstation Player using the OVA file
        5. Installing UCSPE on VMware Workstation
        6. Installing UCSPE on VMware vSphere ESXi
      2. Using Cisco UCSPE
      3. Configuring network settings
      4. Configuring hardware settings
        1. Adding a new chassis with blade servers
          1. Adding an empty chassis
          2. Configuring and adding blade servers to the chassis
          3. Configuring and adding rack-mount servers
          4. Modifying server components
      5. Launching UCS Manager using Platform Emulator
      6. UCSPE limitations
      7. Summary
    5. Configuring Cisco UCS Using UCS Manager
      1. Introducing Cisco UCSM
        1. What's new with UCSM
        2. UCSM firmware version
      2. Walking through the UCSM interface
        1. Navigation pane
          1. The Equipment tab
          2. The Servers tab
          3. The LAN tab
          4. The SAN tab
          5. The VM tab
          6. The Storage tab
          7. The Admin tab
        2. The Fault Summary area
      3. Starting with the initial configuration
      4. Step-by-step initial configuration
      5. Global configuration policies
        1. Chassis/FEX Discovery Policy
        2. Rack Server Discovery Policy
        3. Rack Management Connection Policy
        4. Power Policy
        5. MAC Address Table Aging
        6. Global Power Allocation Policy
        7. Firmware Auto Sync Server Policy
        8. Global Power Profiling Policy
        9. Info Policy
        10. DNS server
        11. Time-zone management
        12. SNMP
      6. UCS Manager - command-line interface
        1. Getting help with CLI commands
        2. Accessing the history of CLI commands
        3. Accessing component-level CLIs
        4. Scope commands
        5. Applying changes
        6. An example configuration using CLI commands
      7. Summary
    6. Configuring LAN Connectivity
      1. Understanding Fabric Interconnect switching modes
        1. Ethernet end-host mode
        2. Ethernet switching mode
      2. Introduction to Fabric Interconnect port types
      3. Configuring northbound connectivity to upstream switches
        1. Configuring upstream switches
        2. Learning how to configure Fabric Interconnect uplink ports
      4. Configuring VLANs
      5. Using pin groups
        1. Dynamic pin groups
          1. Failure response
        2. Static pin groups
          1. Failure response re-pinning
      6. Configuring southbound connectivity to IOMs
        1. Learning how to configure Fabric Interconnect server ports
        2. Configuring IOM ports
      7. Configuring the last piece of the puzzle - vNICs
        1. What is MAC address abstraction?
        2. Learning to create vNICs
      8. Summary
    7. Configuring SAN Connectivity
      1. Learning about storage connectivity options
      2. Overview of FC and iSCSI storage
        1. Overview of SCSI
        2. Overview of Fibre Channel
        3. Overview of iSCSI
        4. Overview of Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE)
      3. Storage connectivity design considerations
      4. Learning about the FC switching mode
      5. Configuring the FC ports
      6. Configuring the FC uplink port
      7. Configuring the FC port channel and trunking
      8. Configuring VSANs and zoning
        1. Learning about zoning
      9. Learning about VSANs
        1. Example configuration - connecting SAN directly to Fabric Interconnects
      10. Configuring FCoE
      11. Manual and automatic uplink pinning
        1. Dynamic pin groups
          1. Failure response
        2. Static pin groups
          1. Failure response re-pinning
      12. Summary
    8. Creating Identity Resource Pools, Policies, and Templates
      1. Understanding identity and resource pools
      2. Learning to create a UUID pool
      3. Learning to create a MAC pool
      4. Learning to create a WWNN pool
      5. Learning to create a WWPN pool
      6. Learning to create IP pools
      7. Making your identity pools meaningful
      8. Understanding server pools
      9. Learning to create server pool membership and qualification policies
      10. Summary
    9. Creating and Managing Service Profiles
      1. Overview of service profiles
      2. Different ways of creating a service profile
        1. Creating a basic service profile
        2. Creating a service profile in the expert mode
        3. Creating a service profile from a service profile template
      3. Configuring policies
        1. Configuring the server BIOS policy
        2. Configuring adapter policies
        3. Configuring scrub policies
        4. Configuring QoS policies
        5. Local disk configuration policies
        6. Maintenance policies
        7. Configuring IPMI
        8. Configuring the Host Firmware policy
      4. A walkthrough of the service profile creation - expert mode
        1. Identifying the service profile
        2. Configuring the storage provisioning
        3. Configuring the networking settings
        4. Configuring the SAN connectivity
        5. Configuring zoning
        6. vNIC/vHBA placement
        7. vMedia policy configuration
        8. Server boot order configuration
          1. Configuring a SAN boot policy
        9. Configuring the server maintenance policy
        10. Associating service profiles
        11. Operational policies
      5. Creating and applying a service profile template
      6. Service profiles cloning
      7. Summary
    10. Managing UCS through Routine and Advanced Management
      1. Licensing Cisco UCS Fabric Interconnect
      2. Starting up and shutting down of Fabric Interconnects
      3. Controlling blade server power
      4. Status and locator LEDs
      5. Configuring logging
      6. Configuring the Cisco Call Home feature
      7. Organizational structure in UCS Manager
        1. Organizational inheritance
      8. RBAC
        1. Active Directory integration
        2. Predefined roles
        3. About UCS locales
      9. Permissions in multitenancy
      10. Summary
    11. Virtual Networking in Cisco UCS
      1. Learning about VN-Link
      2. Using the NX-OS
      3. Changes in the data center
        1. Role differentiation
        2. Role issues
      4. Development of Nexus 1000V
        1. Virtual Ethernet interfaces
        2. Learning about port profiles
      5. Nexus 1000V components
        1. The Virtual Ethernet Module
        2. The Virtual Supervisor Module
      6. VEM implementation
      7. VSM implementation
      8. VEM data plane
        1. VEM functions
      9. VSM control plane
      10. Nexus 1000V and physical switches
        1. The physical switch chassis
        2. Line cards
        3. The N1KV backplane
      11. Nexus and vPath
        1. Performance advantages using vPath
      12. Deploying VSM
      13. VSUM architecture
        1. VSUM and VSM installation
      14. Communication between VSM and VEM
        1. Using layer 2 connectivity
        2. Using layer 3 connectivity
        3. Using the Domain ID
        4. L2 mode
        5. L3 mode
        6. System VLANs and opaque data
        7. VSM to vCenter communication
      15. Summary
    12. Configuring Backup, Restore, and High Availability
      1. Backing up the Cisco UCS configuration
      2. Creating UCS backup jobs
        1. Creating a manually run backup job using GUI
        2. Creating a scheduled backup job using GUI
        3. Creating a backup job using CLI
      3. Restoring backups using GUI
      4. Configuring high availability clustering
        1. Configuring the first Fabric Interconnect
        2. Configuring the second Fabric Interconnect
        3. Fabric Interconnect elections
      5. Managing high availability
        1. The split brain scenario
        2. Partition in space
        3. Partition in time
      6. Summary
    13. Cisco UCS Failure Scenarios Testing
      1. Port channel uplink failure and recovery on Fabric Interconnects
      2. Server link to Fabric Interconnect failure and recovery
        1. Identifying a mezzanine adapter failure
          1. Common mezzanine adapter error messages
      3. FEX IO modules - failure and recovery
        1. Common IOM error messages
        2. Fabric Interconnect server port failure
        3. Rectifying the global Chassis/FEX Discovery Policy configuration error
      4. Fabric Interconnect device failure and recovery
        1. Common error messages with Fabric Interconnects
      5. UCS chassis failure, reporting, and recovery
        1. Common failure messages for the UCS chassis
      6. Single Fibre Channel failure and recovery on Fabric Interconnects
      7. Indicating a status with Beacon LEDs
      8. Creating a tech-support file
      9. Summary
    14. Third-Party Application Integration
      1. Understanding the challenges in infrastructure
      2. Going deep with UIM
      3. Understanding the discovery mechanism of UIM
      4. Learning about the UIM service life cycle
      5. Integrating VMware vCenter Server with UCSM
        1. Configuring vCenter with UCSM
        2. Integration with Cisco UCS PowerTool Suite
          1. Connecting your UCS Manager using PowerTool Suite
      6. Summary
    15. Automation and Orchestration of Cisco UCS
      1. Multiple UCS domain management
        1. UCS Central architecture
        2. Why UCS Central?
        3. UCS domain registration with UCS Central
      2. Performance monitoring and capacity planning
        1. UCS Performance Manager architecture
      3. Powering infrastructure with a cloud solution
        1. UCS Director overview
        2. UCS Director solutions
          1. UCS Director
          2. UCS Director Baremetal Agent
      4. Summary

    Product information

    • Title: Implementing Cisco UCS Solutions - Second Edition
    • Author(s): Anuj Modi, Farhan Nadeem, Prasenjit Sarkar
    • Release date: April 2017
    • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
    • ISBN: 9781786464408