UCS Service Profile on C-Servers & 3rd Party PCIe devices

[ebussink]

I'm curious to see if anyone has been able to use UCS Service Profiles with C-Servers (via Nexus 2232PP FEX and C240M3 server) to manage a Windows Server install that has a non-Cisco PCIe device. I need to add a PCIe custom interface (like a PCIe Fax card) to the C240M3.

Thanks a lot,

Erik

[Robert Burns]

Eric,

There are certain adapters that we support to allow UCSM management.  The two modes are Single Wire Management (SWM) and Dual Wire Management (DWM).  The guide below will detail which adapters are supported for each platform with either SWM or DWM.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/unified_computing/ucs/c-series_integration/ucsm2.1/b_UCSM2-1_C-Integration_chapter_011.html#reference_D644111FC68046F0BEA49756A0834664

As for 3rd party PCIe adapters such as a fax card, it might very well work, but understand it will not be managed by UCSM, nor would it be supported.  When UCSM manages a rack server, it augments the PCI bus order to some extent so I'm not sure how the 3rd party adapter would function.

I do believe it would work, but support would be my concern.  If you ever had a UCS-related issue and opened a TAC case, the first thing they'd ask you to do is remove the unsupported adapters.

I'm going to confirm a few supportability points with engineering, and get back to you in a day or two.

Regards,

Robert

[Robert Burns]

So I confirmed we would indeed support adding 3rd party adapters with the understanding that if there were problems the non-Cisco provided adapters could be removed for troubleshooting purposes if/when required.  Other than that, there should be no problem integrating and managing the rack server with the PCIe Fax card installed.

Regards,

Robert