UCS S3260 Application

[Yea9632]

Hello,

I would like to know what is the recommended application(s) to install in the server node, to be able to share the available disk volumes entirely, NetApp  appliance for example comes with a built-in application, but unfortunately I I have no experience with cisco in such use case ... tried to use Windows just to test, but the volume shared can't be more than 2TB

Any Idea guys?

[Yea9632]

Any inputs guys ?

[Kirk J · Accepted solution]

While they both involve storage, comparing the 3260 and a netapp filer, is comparing apples and oranges.

The 3260 is primarily hardware solution, allowing a wide range of OS's to be installed.

The netapp appliances are sold around a very specific file storage solution.

Many customers utilize the 3260 as a B2D solution, with linux, windows, and backup applications such as VEEAM, comvault, netbackup, etc.

You might want to search on some of the CVD design guides that utilize the 3260 such as:

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/UCS_CVDs/ucs_s3260_m5_scalityring.html

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/UCS_CVDs/ucs_s3260_rhceph21.html

https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/UCS_CVDs/Cisco_UCS_S3260_Storage_Server_with_Cloudera_Enterprise_Data_Hub.pdf

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/storage-spaces/storage-spaces-direct-hardware-requirements

Thanks,

Kirk...

[Yea9632]

thank you for your valuable reply :)

[TrickTrick]

Hello Kirk, I'm in the same situation as Yea963, I reviewed the CVD's you shared. We cannot use the S3260 without using other equipements like a fabric switch, and an application that will provide the intelligence to the solution like Cloudera, can you confirm that the S3260 can not work as a storage solution without anything else with it ? Thank you

[Kirk J]

Trying to make sure I understand your question fully....

The 3260 is chassis that provides up to 2 compute slots, with shared 40Gb networking, and up to 60 large form factor drive slots, plus OS boot SSD slots.

You are going to need the same kind of infrastructure to connect to it as you would any other server, including L2/L3 switches.

How are you expecting your end users to use it/connect to it?

Some super basic setup could involve throwing RedHat/CentOS on it, and creating some big NFS shares on it,, or configure iSCSI server/target for block level storage, or installing Windows server and creating  a bunch of Windows/CIFs shares over the network.

There are some appliance like versions of the 3260 that have video surveillance software running on these as well, using local storage to house the digital video.

You really need to think of the 3260 as a VERY large server/Hardware (albeit multiple compute nodes and flexible ways to assigning drives between the two compute nodes).  You need to have some sort of plan as to what software/OS you want to run, when purchasing it.

Kirk...

[Ahmed Wasim]

Hello Kirk,
I am really having a nightmare that is called S3260! Tons of bugs and caveats that face me in every step. Currently, I am trying to install windows server 2016/2019 on any of its disks/LUNs but it fails. In the Legacy mode, it boots from the kvm mapped windows iso but when I select the disk to install windows, it fails with the following error: "Windows cannot be installed on this disk. This computer's hardware may not support booting to this disk. Ensure that the disk's controller is enabled in the computer's BIOS menu." I tried to add a disk/LUN as a boot option but it fails with the following error: Boot not supported for LUN/JBOD on 4K block sized drives. In the UEFI mode, it accepted to add the disk as a boot option but it did not boot from the kvm mapped iso.
All disks are 8TB SAS.
Any ideas?

[TrickTrick]

Hello Ahmed,
Went through the same process for months before I succeed to configure it

If you simply looking for windows installation in this huge chassis, first of all you need to access the server setup and make all the disks "configured good" or something similar to that, after that it will reboot and you can access the IMC (I think by pressing F8 if I remember well) you need to go to the Controller Info page, click Create Virtual Drive from Unused Physical Drives, select the physical drives you want and the RAID type you want

In my case I installed the system in the SSD drives, and had just to make all the Hard Drives available for storage..don't really remember the exact steps since I didn't touch it since I configured it

Good luck

[Ahmed Wasim]

Thanks for your reply.
I don't have SSD drives. So, is it possible to install OS on the SAS drives instead?

[TrickTrick]

yes of course, just be sure you're not mixing the system disks with storage disks

[Yea9632]

Hi Kirk,
it may sound stupid,can I purchase one of the applications and use it in the chassis S3260 with a catalyst switch (by using NICs of the server node) we don't need any high speed transfer or anything (so no need for nexus fibrechannel switch etc ..), just file share that will allow me to exploit the whole volume of disks available

[Kirk J]

There are some 40 to 10Gb converters, CVR-QSFP-SFP10G QSFP to SFP+ adapter (QSA), or 'octopus' cables that go from 40Gb to 4x10Gb such as QSFP-4SFP10G-CU3M.

https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/servers-unified-computing/ucs-s-series-storage-servers/s3260-specsheet.pdf

You will want to check your upstream switch's sfp compatability list as well.

The 3260 can have other PCI-E devices installed as well such as UCSC-PCIE-IRJ45 Intel i350T4 Quad Port 1 Gb copper, if you use one of the compute slots for the I/O expander module.

Kirk...

[Yea9632]

Hello Kirk,
I appreciate your effort to give accurate answers, and details as much as you can
to give you an idea about what is happening, we have this S3260 with only 1 server node, this server node has 4 NICs, beside of this nothing was purchased (no hardware / software), in the existing infrastructure we have a 2960X switch and other UCS servers that will need to get access to a shared file located in the storage S3260, and that's it, i'm wondering if we can trunk 4 NICs of the server node or just link them to the switch directly, and use the mentioned applications to manage the entire storage, do you see this as "doable" solution ? I know it's a waste of such chassis, but i'm trying to make this work with what I have now......it's mandatory to use other equipments (fibrechannel switch etc ...) or it can work that way I mentioned ? beside of the hardware requirements , the applications validated in the CVD can work in the scenario I mentioned ? my goal is to share the storage volume available in those disks (around 270 TB) as file share I believe the application you provided to me allow to create  and share such volume

Thanks so much