Can UCSX be managed without intersight?

[NeoChen722593]

Hi All,

I want to know about can UCSX be managed without intersight, just like B series be managed by UCSM on FI?

And if UCSX has already been managed by Intersight, can it be converted to manage by UCSM?

[Kirk J]

Some of the UCSX hardware has been added in later versions of UCSM.

See https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/release/notes/b_release-notes-ucsm-4_3.html#ucsmRN_43_supplatform

Kirk...

[NeoChen722593]

@Kirk J 
So if I already manage by intersight, can it convert to manage by ucsm?

[Riaan van Niekerk]

Unfortunately not guided/automated. The Cisco Intersight Managed Mode Transition Tool can transition domains from UMM (UCS Manager Managed Mode) to IMM (Intersight Managed Mode), but does not support transitions in the other direction. 

A manual switch from IMM to UMM would entail

• Shutting down all hosts.
• Run an erase config on both FIs.
• In the CLI setup choose UCSM:

Enter the configuration method. (console/gui) ? console
Enter the management mode. (ucsm/intersight)? ucsm

• Configure the domain and SPs like you normally would (e.g. from scratch or via UCS Central)

[NeoChen722593]

@Riaan van Niekerk ,

Thank you for your reply.

1. I comform again, so UCSX also can be managed by ucsm, Not necessarily be managed by intersight!?

2. If we want to covert to UMM, we have to reset FI and choose UMM, and all profiles have to rebuild,

but we didn't buy any license?  So UCSX can be UMM like B series?

This is important for me because my customer want to use UMM.

[Riaan van Niekerk · Accepted solution]

1. I confirm again, so UCS-X also can be managed by ucsm, Not necessarily be managed by intersight!?

100%. As @Kirk pointed out, UCSM support for UCS-X chassis, blades and IFM was added in UCS firmware 4.3(2). 

I maintain this Reddit page Cisco UCS releases, components supported and LDOS which states that fact as well.

We initially tried to go with Intersight Managed Mode (before the release of UCS 4.3(2) firmware) but creating all the pools, policies and other objects from scratch, and wrapping our heads around some of the changed constructs (orgs are no longer hierarchical) and new constructs (resource groups) proved too difficult, that due to the deadlines of our project, as soon as 4.3(2) was released, it made more sense to start from scratch on UCSM Managed Mode.

After we met our deadline, we were able to transition the domains from UMM to IMM using the Intersight Managed Mode Transition Tool. In addition to performing the transition, it also gave us the benefit of transitioning policies and profiles with values that we trust and have been using for years, instead of relying on defaults or knowing where to change away from the defaults. 

For anyone mostly familiar with UMM and for whom IMM is still relatively new, I cannot recommend Intersight Managed Mode (IMM) for UCS Manager admins highly enough. Also, many of the gaps that existed in IMM as of this presentation, have been filled in the past 2 years. 

2. If we want to covert to UMM, we have to reset FI and choose UMM, and all profiles have to rebuild,

Correct. Since (a) we have Cisco UCS Central which baselines the domain settings and (b) did not have any active workloads (no SPs that had to be recreated) yet, the conversion for us was reasonably painless.