QoS on the UCS Chassis

[terry.cleeton]

I bought a UCS chassis with two blades that are 'qualified' for Cisco Voice products (cm, ccx, etc)....     i decided to not buy the $20,000 worth of VMWARE enterprise pro licenses and the v1000 switch... since the ROI is simply not there (I'd rather have 4 separate pieces of hardware then spend that much money on software)...  anyway...   so now my questions are:

1. What QoS options are available (if any) on the uplink from the chassis to the 6120s and from the 6120s to my 4500 switch.

2.  What Qos options are available (if any) on individual hosts inside my vmware.

3. Can I buy the v1000 switch (which i believe is a few grand) and get some QoS without buying the stupid expensive vmware enterprise pro?

...or do i just return the chassis?

Thanks!

[Robert Burns · Accepted solution]

Terry,

1. UCS traffic will maintain is CoS markings on the egress of the UCS system.  It's then up to the upstream switch to honor these marking accordingly.  All CoS markings between the Chassis and FI will be honored on the IOM to prioritze traffic accoridngly in the event of congestion using PFC.  Have a read on tha attached paper about UCS & QoS, should help you get an understand on the system handling of QoS/CoS. 

2. VMware 5 does offer some new auto quality of service options.  Have a read through:

What's new in vSphere 5 Networking

3.  No.  Any Distributed Switch (VMware vDS or Cisco 1000v DVS) requires the Enterprise Plus license.  This includes both the Cisco 1000v and VN-Link in Hardware (PTS with Palo M81KR adaptor).

Regards,

Robert

[Marwan ALshawi]

Hi Robert,

quick question

as per your comment above " 1. UCS traffic will maintain is CoS markings on the egress of the UCS system.  It's then up to the upstream switch to honor these marking accordingly "

is that mean if i have UC on UCS and i have CUCM marks the traffic with a certain DSCP this DSCP will be sent wihtout being rewritten to the uplink switch such as N5K or 6500 ?

what about in the case of using N1K ?