Difference between MCS and UCS servers?

[techToddler]

Hello Friends,

I would like to know the differences between MCS and UCS servers.

What is MCS and what is UCS. How they work? etc.,

Could someone help me about this. 

Regards

Sanjay.

[Sreekanth Narayanan · Accepted solution]

MCS servers are the servers in the traditional sense, where you have an OS like Linux or the Unified Communications OS (UCOS for CUCM etc) running directly above the hardware. These are basically really strong PCs.

UCS servers are primarily for virtualization. They have hardware in the form of a pool (RAM, HDD space, CPU cores). There will be an OS like the ESXi (VMWare) that will interact with the hardware pool. Above the ESXi are the CUCM, CUC application servers. They are virtualized servers which are "tricked" into believing that they have hardware by the ESXi system. The ESXi is responsible for regulating the use of the hardware pool for the various virtual servers running on top of it.

UCS servers bring different concepts like SAN (Storage Area Network) also into the picture, wher storage can be in one place and servers in another.

[techToddler]

Sorry about the delay in responding to this post. 

Thank you so much for the information provided. I got a chance to look into these servers in real and had a configuration example by my friends. 

Thanks again everyone.

Regards

Sanjay.

[Manish Gogna]

In addition to the nice info shared by Sreekanth [+5] you can check the following Cisco doc which provides details of the adavantages of moving from MCS based to a UCS based deployment

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/enterprise/cisco-on-cisco/Cisco_IT_Case_Study_UC_on_UCS_v2.html

Choosing UCS over MCS was prompted by the following:

The first factor was the need to support more users and endpoints, particularly in the Cisco UCM clusters. Some of these clusters had grown close to their upper limit ¹. "Many of our users have multiple phones, and many are adding Cisco Jabber® software clients that integrate voice, video, and data services," says Jim Marshall, Cisco IT engineer, UC and voice processing operations group. "All of these endpoints route voice calls through our Cisco UCM clusters, which means we needed more capacity for users and devices."

The second factor was the goal to consolidate and simplify Cisco's UC infrastructure worldwide to reduce data center costs. The third factor was the decision by Cisco IT to standardize on virtual machines (VMs) running on Cisco UCS servers to make regular maintenance easier and to improve server availability. The final factor was the need to replace the current Cisco MCS servers, which were aging and eligible for a scheduled hardware refresh. This migration effort from Cisco MCS to Cisco UCS servers would eventually encompass all Cisco locations and UC solutions.

Manish

[Gordon Ross]

MCS servers were rebadged IBM & HP servers. (At the time Cisco didn't make their own servers)

UCS servers are machines that Cisco design and make themselves.

Other than that, they're all just x86 servers.

GTG