Interop between B200 M4 and B200 M5 in same Chassis

[Balram Vishwakarma]

Hello Team,

Currently in our DC we have 5108 Chassis installed with B200 M4 servers and we have some some slots left in chassis.

As we know that B200 M4 is EOS and we running out of computing resource so it utilize the free slots, we are considering to use B 200 M5 servers as replacement.

I have below queries before we can make decision.

1. Will both M4 and M5 will work together in same chassis?
2. Are there any interop limitation ? If yes where do I find document (already searched on google but nothing specific found).
3. Will there is issue in performance as both server uses CPU and RAM with different clock rate.

If there is any document or tool to compare this do let me know. And if someone have answers please help.

Please note attached sheet have quick comparison detail for reference.

Regards,

Balram

[Wes Austin]

First, I do not see any documentation surrounding the EOS for B200-M4. I see it for B200-M3....not M4??

Second, yes, you can have both M4 and M5 in the same chassis, however, the M5 require 3.2 UCSM/Blade firmware. The following link has info on all interop for UCSM 3.2.

UCS 3.2 Release Notes

Im not sure I understand the third question, if the servers have different hardware components (M4 vs M5) I would expect performance differences. If the question is "Can you add them to the same HA cluster" I would say the answer is no, since the hardware/CPU/DIMM is different.

[Balram Vishwakarma]

Hello Mr. Austin,

Thank you quick response.

We are running UCS-EZ8-B200M4-V and it shows EOS under below announcement

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/servers-unified-computing/ucs-b-series-blade-servers/eos-eol-notice-c51-735597.html

Could you please re-confirm if I have got something wrong here or the part is still available in M4 but with different PID ?

The third question is related to performance issue with chassis as some server will be M4 and other will be M5. Will there is any issue?

What if applications cluster (CUCM.CUC) is shared between M4 and M5 in same chassis or inter chassis ?

Thanks,

[r.heitmann]

is this not just a link to an Promotional-Bundle - which might be EOSale but not the Blade-Server-Module itself!? this should be the current list of EOSed server-hardware: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/servers-unified-computing/ucs-b200-m4-blade-server/model.html#End-of-LifeandEnd-of-SaleNotices B200 M2 where EOS at March 1, 2013 B200 M3 where EOS at December 31, 2016. There are usually 6 months between an EOS-announcement and the EOS-date, so i'd assume you have more than 6 months left to order M4-blades since there is no M4-EOS-announcement published. Correct me if i've missed something.

[Kevin Williamson]

Balram,

On question 3,  if you mean HA cluster like VMWare cluster HA?  Then you should be able to do EVC mode but it must be set at oldest chipset model.