A Field Guide covering the installation, initial configuration, and expansion of Cisco FlashStack with Nutanix clusters using Intersight Managed Mode (IMM) on UCS X-series, C-series, and B-series servers connected to Pure Storage FlashArray external storage. This solution uses "Compute-Only" hosts, i.e. servers without local storage disks other than boot devices, running Nutanix AHV as the hypervisor, and connected to a Pure Storage FlashArray external storage array via Ethernet using NVMe/TCP. Intersight Managed Mode (IMM) is the term for X-series, C-series and B-series servers connected to Cisco UCS Fabric Interconnects, which are managed entirely via Cisco Intersight. The document covers the initial configuration of a new UCS Intersight managed domain, deployment and use of the new Nutanix Foundation Central Appliance VM, networking designs, deployment of clusters using Compute-Only nodes, multi-vNIC support with custom LAN Connectivity policies, Pure storage array configuration, plus post-installation steps to attach a Nutanix Compute-Only cluster to a Pure storage array.
This guide is intended for technical training and educational purposes, for all who wish to install FlashStack with Nutanix on Cisco UCS and Pure Storage hardware following our supported hardware and software integrations and compatibility lists. As a reference guide, the document presents our best practices and recommendations as of the time of publishing, and will be updated periodically. Please refer to the document history at the beginning to ensure you are using the most current version available.
