UCS Manager configuration

[Symon Fenton]

Is there a document available to complete the smart call home configuration for UCS Manager? I have call home configured, but I suspect there's more to configure.

Cheers,

Symon

[Micki Eubanks]

Hi Symon,

The configuration guide for the UCS Manager can be found at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/unified_computing/ucs/sw/gui/config/guide/2.0/b_UCSM_GUI_Configuration_Guide_2_0_chapter_0101100.html

The area of the guide pertinent to configuring Smart Call Home is at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/unified_computing/ucs/sw/gui/config/guide/2.0/b_UCSM_GUI_Configuration_Guide_2_0_chapter_0101100.html#task_8C24D00D7DF74266B508C0AC1CCDD84C

[Bryan Williams]

We also have a Smart Call Home quick start guide for UCS:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/switches/lan/smart_call_home/QuickStart_UCS.pdf

If you are already receiving email from Call Home, then your next step is to add callhome@cisco.com as a recipient in the CiscoTAC-1 profile.

[Symon Fenton]

thank you for the details. I've been trying to several days to get to this site:

https://tools.cisco.com/sch/ But I am asked to log in, but then nothing. I expect that I need to register the UCS Manager instance for Smart Call home to work.

In the document at this link, it shows a transport gateway or email. UCS manager support email, is that correct? I don't need the transport gateway?

We have UCS Manager configured to send the emails to callhome@cisco.com and our local accounts.

Am I to assume that when the device is registered on the web site, we'll be taking advantage of Smart call home?

Cheers,

Symon

[Bryan Williams]

Hi Symon,

If this is the first device registered under a Smartnet contract, then you need to log on to the portal to confirm the registration.  The email address that you entered in the contact field in UCSM should have received an email with a link and instructions.  Once you confirm the registration, you will become the admin for devices on that contract and for your company.  That should resolve your login issues.

Yes, UCSM can send email directly to callhome@cisco.com or use a transport gateway.  The transport gateway retrieves messages from a local inbox and relays those messages to Cisco using HTTPS.  Messages sent through the transport gateway are encrypted. 

Messages sent to callhome@cisco.com are analyzed by Smart Call Home.  Those messages are available in the portal along with analysis and recommendations for resolving the issue.  You will also receive a notification from Smart Call Home and Smart Call Home will automatically raise a support case for qualifying messages.

If you also want Call Home messages sent directly to your email address, it's best to create a new profile that uses one of the text formats.  The Smart Call Home messages sent by the CiscoTAC-1 profile are in an XML format and are a bit harder to read.  Of course, those messages will be unfiltered and will not have the analysis and recommendations provided by the Smart Call Home servers.

[Lawrence Searcy]

Just to qualify the instructions for registration.

1. Every time you send in an inventory message from an unregistered device, Smart Call Home will generate a registration email back to the email address in the inventory message.

2. The email address used in the Call Home  configuration MUST be the primary email address for a Cisco.com id.

3. The contract that the device is supported under MUST be associated with the primary email address of the Cisco.com id.

Currently, this is how software based products are determined to have contract coverage.

Primary email address -> Cisco.com ID -> Contracts  associated with Cisco.com ID

If any of the above statements are not true, then you MUST modify your Cisco.com ID profile or call home configuration to make them true.

This algorithm is not used for hardware devices which have serial numbers. Instead, the contract database keeps track of all serial numbers under contract.

[smitchell71]

The UCS system requires the following 3 pieces of information for Smart Call Home:

1. Customer ID - CCO account
2. Contract ID - contract registered with above CCO account
3. Site ID -

It has always been the instruction to open a Cisco TAC to retrieve the contract and site IDs. However more times than not I have TAC telling me they do not have the ability to pull the site ID information and causes delays in configuration. What is the exact procedure for retrieving this information? Who should I, as a partner performing implementations contact for the Site ID information?

[Lawrence Searcy]

You can get all of the contract information via the Cisco Contract Service Center via serial number of the device or the contract number or the sales order:

http://www.cisco.com/web/services/ordering/cscc/index.html

with the support forum here

http://forums.cisco.com/ecom/web/cscc

The TAC engineers follow the same steps as the backend processing algorithm. They usually start with the CCO ID and look at the contracts associated to it unless the cisco product has a serial number or they can look up the Sales order. There is an internal CCO Profile lookup tool where they can use the email address to pull up the CCO ID or use the CCO ID to pull up its profile and associated contracts.

As far as the site id goes, sometimes it is in the contract and sometimes it is not. During the contract purchase, there may be site ids defined so that RMA processing will go quicker. If the place where the RMA is going is not defined as a site id, then the TAC engineer has to type all of the information in to get it to the right place.

If I were installing this for a customer, I would ask for this information up front. You need their CCO id, their primary email address associated to the CCO ID and the contract that the device is covered by. Typically, this will be a general company wide CCO account with a distribution email alias. As long as the right contract is associated with it, it is good to go.

BTW, that email address used during registration will be set as the primary notification email in Smart Call Home notifications and the CCO id will be set for opening up any automatic TAC SRs from Smart Call home.

Also, UCS might require that information in the GUI or CLI to function  locally on the device but the Smart Call Home backend is following the  logic in my previous post to determine the associated contract.

[smitchell71]

Lawrence,

Thank you for the great response. This is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you for the great links. Looking up the contract with the serial number in the Cisco Contract Service Center also provides the site ID. This will be a huge help moving forward.

Thanks again for the great info.

[Lawrence Searcy]

I guess I need to clarify what information is for the customer and what information is for Smart Call Home. Currently, Smart Call Home only wants to know:

1. Which CCO Id is used to open automatic TAC SRs with?

2. Which email address is used for Smart Call Home notifications?

3. Which contract is the device associated with? (Typically derived via serial number [Hardware] or primary CCO ID email address[Software])***

***Unfortunately, it gets complicated when the contract stipulates that entire chassis or the entire site is covered under contract. I did not go into the exact process once these first 2 easy catches above are done.

From this information, it derives the product id to look up PSIRT, End of Life, and other notices.

All the other information supplied is used in the backend Smart Call Home web pages to sort or group the devices or for the Customer. For example, the site id groups devices by site. As Smart Call Home becomes smarter, the site id will be used to automate and create RMAs for known hardware failures.

[Symon Fenton]

Once this initial configuration is setup, can the email address in UCS Manager be changed to the customers distribution list email, or does it need to stay at the the email address of an individual? They would like to receive emails to a distribution list.

[Lawrence Searcy]

Well there are a few thoughts about this. Here are the setups I might see, although only #2 does not go against Cisco policy.

1. Large companies might use a Cisco.com account with a primary email address of the NOC and have that account associated to the contracts.

Good: any TAC SRs opened gets spammed to the NOC account automatically. Don't have to worry about an individual leaving the company or going on vacation and not answering their email. Everyone has access to all TAC SRs notes associated to the account.

BAD: Everyone sees all TAC SR emails until they reply and request to limit the email address to the person working on the issue. Complicates communication since TAC engineers will send the email to the owner of the TAC SR by default. Everyone in the NOC has access to that Cisco account and profile and any TAC SRs.

2. Register the device with a single user cisco.com account and then modify the TAC SR and notifications email address on the Smart Call Home web site when the single user goes on vacation. The first email address used in the registration message will be locked for notifcations and never deleted at this time. This will change in the future. But the generate TAC SR email address can be any cisco.com account associated with the contract.

Good: follows Cisco policy for individual ownership of cisco.com accounts.

Bad: If account holder leaves company or goes on vacations, TAC SR emails will not be seen until another admin for the company changes the notification email or TAC SR email on Smart Call Home web site.

3. You can also add a CC or secondary email address to anyone's cisco.com account to send it to an individual and then CC the entire NOC.

Good: account stays at the individual user and email is sent to the individual but also gets sent to the NOC.

Bad: email gets sent to the NOC each time a message is sent from TAC to the individual.

[Bryan Williams]

Most of the notifications you receive are from Smart Call Home (call-home-notify@cisco.com). These notifications can be sent to any number of Cisco.com accounts or email addresses. Run the registered devices report in the portal, select a few devices and click on the button labeled "Edit Preferences" and you will see the option to add additional recipients.

When Smart Call Home automatically raises a support request, it creates that case as a specific user. And that specific user will also be contacted by TAC. This is where Lawrence's reply applies.

It's easy to change the "SR Contact" should that person leave the company or go on vacation. Use the registered devices report or device groups to make the change for multiple devices. The Smart Call Home notification contains the case number when one is raised, so you shouldn't miss a case even if the primary contact is not available.