The UCS Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) has recently undergone some major rework. Most notably it really is no longer a list. It is now primarily implemented through a set of APIs, because at Cisco we LOVE to do our stuff with APIs! We do still distribute the HCL in documents for those so inclined, we have a reference Web UI that accesses the APIs (and makes a superb reference for understanding them), and we're starting to publish some How-To material on using the APIs. That's what this post is about.
You can access the APIs in several ways. First, we are actually building HCL integration into our management tools. Since version 1.5 UCS Central has been able to natively provide compatibility checks. The UCS PowerTool integration for PowerShell includes cmdlets for interacting with the HCL using data acquired directly from a UCSM Domain or individual server. Finally, you can directly access the APIs using your favorite web development tools. Let me dive into that a little more...
I'm a big fan of Jupyter (ex IPython) Notebooks for playing around with and sharing Python development experiences. I've started a set of notebooks to help bootstrap people on using the HCL API. I have the first one completed that goes through the same basic sequence as the primary Server Search pivot provided by the Web UI.
The UCS HCL APIs give you access to a vast amount of data on UCS Compatibility for UCS Managed and Standalone servers.
Take a look, try things out, and give us feedback or ask questions as needed here on the Cisco Communities or at ucs-hcl-feedback@cisco.com.
Last thing is to point you at the API Documentation.
Enjoy!
