Ask the Expert: Technical Discussion on UCS-Mini platform

[ciscomoderator]

Welcome to the Cisco Support Community Ask the Expert conversation.
Ask your technical questions on UCS-Mini platform.

The Discussion/Q&A is from November 24th through December 5th, 2014

Cisco UCS, originally designed for the data center, is now optimized for branch and remote offices, point-of-sale, and smaller IT environments with Cisco UCS Mini. UCS Mini is for customers who need fewer servers (expandable to 15 servers) but still want the robust management capabilities provided by UCS Manager.  UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect is main component which makes this solution possible on UCS 5108 Chassis with B200 M3 Blade Servers

This solution delivers servers, storage, and 10 Gigabit networking in an easy-to-deploy, compact form factor.

Vishal Mehta is a customer support engineer for Cisco’s Data Center Server Virtualization Technical Assistance Center (TAC) team based in San Jose, California. He has been working in the TAC for the past 3 years with a primary focus on data center technologies such as Cisco Nexus® 5000, Cisco UCS, Cisco Nexus 1000V, and virtualization. He presented at Cisco Live in Orlando 2013, Milan 2014, and San Francisco 2014 (BRKCOM-3003, BRKDCT-3444, and LABDCT-2333). He holds a master’s degree from Rutgers University in Electrical and Computer Engineering and has CCIE® certification (number 37139) in Routing/Switching, Service Provider & Data Center.

Rosalind Lee is customer support engineer specializing in Unified Computing System (UCS) blade servers including B series, C series, and E series. Rosalind holds a bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and is currently pursuing her Masters of Information and Data Science at UC Berkeley. 

Please use the rating system to let the experts know if you have received an adequate response. 

Remember that you can continue the conversation in Data Center under the sub-community Unified Computing discussion forum shortly after the event. This event lasts through Dec 5th, 2014. Visit this forum often to view responses to your questions and the questions of other community members.

[Jessica Deaken]

Hello --  We have existing UCS-Central setup. Can it be used to manage UCS-Mini as well?

And if so - please explain how. THANKS! 

[Vishal Mehta]

Hello Jessica,

Your existing UCS-Central infrastructure can manage both Classic UCS and UCS-Mini domains.
There are no specific caveats or conifguration needed on UCS-Central inorder to manage UCS-Mini
Please note that for UCS-Central to manage UCS-Mini, the minimum version on UCS-Central should be 1.2

Thanks,
Vishal

[Jessica Deaken]

Great. THANKS.. I'm also curious.. as to how the 6100/6200 series FI interacts with 6324 FIs

[Rosalind Lee]

Hello Jessica,

FI-6324 is designed to be self-contained for UCS-Mini Solution, and it cannot be connected into or be managed by 6100/6200 Fabric Interconnect. So from connectivity point of view, 6100/6200 will never have interaction with 6324 Fabric Interconnects. 

Thanks,
Rosalind

[Jackson Braddock]

Can we connect existing IOMs 2104/2204/2208 IOMs with 6324 FIs ?

THANKS

[Rosalind Lee]

Hello Jackson,

Connecting IOMs 210X/220X and Chassis to FI-6324 is definitely on the road-map.

Current release 3.0 does not support it, but future releases will have that compatibility.


Thanks,

Rosalind

[Wilson Gabriel Veliz Plua]

Hello Everybody

Do you have a link for TAC webinar where the subject was UCS ?

Thanks

Wilson

[Rosalind Lee]

Hello Wilson,


This series is focused to answer any queries related with UCS-Mini deployments

We are not doing webinar, however below is detailed UCS-Mini session done by Product Manager on Google Hangout+ 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRVhLGsH8oI


Thanks,

Rosalind

[m.imaduddin]

Hi,

We have an opportunity on Cisco-netapp ASAP with UCS Mini. In current UCSM relase (3.0) can you confirm if we can direct connect FC from FAS2000 to FI, and create local zoning on service profile?

I need the confirmation  because i see a contradiction between the information from release note and our local Cisco engineer

Thanks

Imad

[Vishal Mehta]

Hello Imad,

Yes in current firmware 3.0 you can directly connect NetApp to UCS-Mini in FC Switch Mode.

Local FC Zoning can be configured in UCSM as explained in UCS-Mini config guide:
http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/sw/gui/config/guide/3-0/b_UCSM_GUI_User_Guide_3_0/b_UCSM_GUI_User_Guide_3_0_chapter_011011.html

Kindly let me know if you need more information.

Thanks
Vishal

[m.imaduddin]

Hi Vishal,

Thank you for the informations. Is it safe to confirm that Netapps E-series can also direct connect to UCS Mini using FC switch mode?

Thanks

Imad

[Vishal Mehta]

Hi Imad,

Below is the interop matrix for UCS-Mini:

http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/interoperability/matrix/r_hcl_B_rel3-01.pdf (page 12)

Above link lists following NetApp Array Models

FAS2000 Series, FAS2500 Series,
FAS3000 Series, FAS3100 Series,
FAS3200 Series, FAS6000 Series,
FAS6200 Series, FAS8000 Series,
V3000 Series, V6000 Series

I dont see E Series listed above, so current 3.0 UCS-Mini release wont support Netapp E-Series.

Thanks,

Vishal
 

[Sarah Staker]

We are having storage issues after connecting FI-6324 to Brocade FC switch.. is it due to compatibility? Or something else?

[Vishal Mehta]

Hi Sarah,

Just like classic Fabric Interconnect 6100/6200, FI-6324 is also compatible with Brocade FC switch.

However on current release FI-6324 can only be in FC Switch mode and not in NPV mode.

So if Brocade FC switch is in NPIV mode then FI-6324 cannot be connected. In next release of UCS software for FI-6324 NPV mode will be supported.

Thanks

Vishal