Cisco UCS Platform Emulator (3.0(2cPE1))

[jasonsha]

Cisco UCS Platform Emulator, Release 3.0(2cPE1)

CONFIGURATION IMPORT NOTE:  Importing configuration backups (All, System, or Logical) taken from the UCS Platform Emulator (UCSPE) to physical UCS Manager domains is not recommended or supported by Cisco TAC.  UCSPE backups should only be imported to UCSPE domains.

The UCS Platform Emulator version 3.0(2cPE1) is a platform release that ONLY supports the 6324 Fabric Interconnect based domains.  No other Fabric Interconnect (6100 / 6200) will work with this UCSPE.

New Hardware Features

Cisco UCS Platform Emulator, Release 3.0(2cPE1), adds support for the following new hardware:

• Cisco UCS B420 M3 Blade Server (UCSB-B420-M3)
• Cisco UCS B22 M3 Blade Server (UCSB-B22-M3)
• Cisco UCS B200 M4 Blade Server (UCSB-B200-M4)
• Cisco UCS C220 M4 Rack Server (UCSC-C220-M4S/L)
• Cisco UCS C240 M4 Rack Server (UCSC-C240-M4S/L/S2/X)
• Cisco Blade Server Adapter VIC 1340 (UCSB-MLOM-40G-03)
• Cisco Blade Server Adapter VIC 1380 (UCSB-VIC-M83-8P)
• Cisco Rack Server Adapter VIC 1227 (UCSC-MLOM-CSC-02)
• Changes in the UCS Platform Emulator VM Console

          – Modifications to the VM Console login

          – Modifications to the VM Console Options Menu

          – Modifications to the Network Settings

          – Modifications to the System Settings

          – More details added to the Status Summary display

Known Limitations

Cisco UCS Platform Emulator, Release 3.0(2cPE1) has the following limitations:

• In the UCSM component topology, the link between the rack server and fabric interconnect is shown as down.
• Firmware version of components in UCSPE is not visible on the Cisco UCS Central.
• Disconnecting of the servers by unconfiguring their server ports does not impact the server state.
• We recommended that you check the imported configuration on the Control Panel to ensure there are no missing components or unsupported components. Unsupported or missing components can impact discovery and it is out of the limitation of the UCSPE catalog that such a scenario can occur.  We suggest you delete the unsupported components and add the component manually on the Control Panel. Occasionally, import of rack servers might fail.
• Live import of the configuration is possible only with the UCS Mini and not with other versions of the Cisco UCS Manager.

NOTE: From UCS PE 2.2(1bPE1) onwards, UCS PE supports uploading the B-Series and C-Series server firmware bundles.  Because of the large file sizes of the firmware bundles, UCS PE only supports uploading of only the stripped-down versions (attached to this document), which includes only the firmware metadata but not the actual firmware itself in the binaries.  The stripped-down version of the firwmare bundles which contain metadata only of the B-series and C-series server firmware is reduced to approximately 50 kB in size.

• Download UCSPE Firmware Bundles: UCS Platform Emulator Firmware Bundles (includes firmware meta-data only)

[armin.kunaschik]

I'm trying to add my C240 M4SX to the emulator and don't succeed to add the internal Wellsburg Dual 4 port adapter to connect 2 UCS-SD240GBKS4-EV devices to it.

Drag and drop shows me a broken icon and nothing will be added.

All other components work fine. Restarting USCPE did not help. I'm using the current version of USCPE.

Any hints or howto? What did I do wrong?

Edit: I worked around the problem by importing my environment from my live UCS. I still can not create my servers from scratch. When I simply run my live import, the emulator complains about "ha functionality not ready".

The live import only worked with a local UCSM account. We also have LDAP configured, but any LDAP account (either with or without domain) is rejected.

[dsoper]

Unfortunately, the UCSPE does not support adding the Wellsburg controller to a configuration. The controller is listed in the UCSPE menu because it is part of the UCSM catalog, but not all UCSM catalog items are supported by UCSPE.

[armin.kunaschik]

Then it's probably also not possible to manage SSDs connected to those adapters in UCSPE?

We're using UCSM profiles to configure RAID on those disks...

In the imported configuration I see 2 times a disk1 which seems connected to the MegaRAID adapter.

This doesn't look correct to me.

I also want to manage the MegaRAID connected disks with UCSM. What do you suggest?

[dsoper]

Policies can be created for MeagRAID configuration, but there are limits on applying the policies in Service Profiles based on the MegaRAID being only an emulation.

Can you send screenshots of the UCSM inventory (as shown in the physical domain) and what UCSPE shows after import?

Thanks.

[armin.kunaschik]

It looks like I'm stuck before already. I expected that the emulator is able to run my imported live configuration... but I didn't check, and it doesn't.

After import and start the emulator runs for few mins discovering 16 machines, and the discovery fails every time.

Parts of the hardware displayed in UCSM is not the same as configured before, e.g. there is only 1 CPU (2 in live system) and only 48 GB memory (256 in live system). I also see no disks connected to the system inventory (in the live system are plenty), and there are also no DIMMs in the system (despite it displays 48GB elswhere).

It's all the same after a factory reset.

I stopped waiting after ~15 mins. Am I just too impatient?

Should I mention, that my live UCSM runs 3.1.3a?

If I can not import/run my live config and can not create a config near my live setup, UCSPE is unfortunately useless :-(