Automate bring up of 50 UCS-C and installing Software on top of them

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05-06-2017 05:05 PM - edited 03-01-2019 01:10 PM
Hi,
I'm a network guy and i am assigned a task to bring up 50 UCS-C 240M servers, some of them will have VMWare vCenter and some will just have an operating system (a linux variant, still an .iso image).
What are the known/common ways to automate the above.
Thanks
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Unified Computing System (UCS)
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05-06-2017 05:43 PM
Are these UCSM integrated?
It really depends on the OS's ability for scripted install.
Both Vsphere and Linux can be scripted/automated install.
General points of interest:
- What will OS destination be (local disk, boot from san, etc)?
- What are you using for install media source (i.e. NFS, HTTP, FTP, etc)
- Are you going to trying to provision local raid as part of install, or do that prior to os install?
- I've seen some customer's build in storcli/megacli into install image so the underlying raid would get provisioned as part of install.
General setup for linux auto install will involve,DHCP, PXE/TFTP, HTTP server to store install media, kickstart scripts.
Kirk...

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05-06-2017 06:01 PM
hi Kirk,
Are these UCSM integrated?
HK> not sure what that means, i thought ucsm is a software that is on the ucs-b series.
is there any Cisco tool for the job ?
thx
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05-07-2017 05:01 AM
UCSM support C series integration, and we frequently see customers that will have nothing but C series integration and no B series deployed for large Hadoop and Openstack type deployments.
There is a product called UCS Director that is an orchestration type product.
I'm not sure if a one time shot of 50 servers is worth the effort to set up an orchestration product though.
Something else you might want to consider from the management & maintaining perspective, is IMC supervisor. http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/servers-unified-computing/integrated-management-controller-imc-supervisor/index.html
IMC Supervisor can automate firmware upgrades, help automate configurations, storage configurations, etc.
Kirk...
