Hi Dmitri,

dmitriypotemkin · ‎03-07-2017

Hello all,

I'm looking for a lab setup to study for the CCNA data center. I come from a Juniper background and I have a large number of Juniper routers, switches and firewalls (SRXs and EXs mostly). My company recently started buying cisco ucs equipment (a number of servers connected to FI switches and from there to our Juniper network infrastructure). I would like to set up a lab at home that could simulate this setup and as a bonus, let me study for the CCNA DC. What sort of lab could I set up for under 500? Under 1000? All recommendations are welcome.

Thanks!

Anarv Handoo · ‎03-12-2017

Hi Dmitri,

I would suggest you to get familiar with the UCS Manager interface.

Cisco UCS Manager supports the entire Cisco UCS server and Cisco HyperFlex Series hyperconverged infrastructure portfolios.

It enables server, fabric, and storage provisioning as well as, device discovery, inventory, configuration, diagnostics, monitoring, fault detection, auditing, and statistics collection.

You can use "UCS Platform Emulator". You can load this emulator in the VM-Ware Workstation / Player.

Kindly refer below links to setup UCS - Emulator:

Cisco UCS Platform Emulator User Guide: https://communities.cisco.com/servlet/JiveServlet/download/57526-4-87139/Cisco_UCS_Platform_Emulator_User_Guide_Release_3_0_2cPE1.pdf

Setup and Use of the Cisco UCS Platform Emulator: http://vmiss.net/2016/07/19/setup-and-use-of-the-cisco-ucs-platform-emulator/

You can also look youtube for the steps to setup the UCS Emulator.

Link to download the Emulator files: https://communities.cisco.com/docs/DOC-37827

Please find the UCS configuration guide below:

Configuration guide for UCS 2.2:

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/sw/gui/config/guide/2-2/b_UCSM_GUI_Configuration_Guide_2_2.html

Configuration guide for UCS 3.1:

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/servers-unified-computing/ucs-manager/products-installation-and-configuration-guides-list.html

Regards,