Cisco UCS Platform Emulator, Release 2.5(2PE1)
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.
New Hardware Features
Cisco UCS Platform Emulator, Release 2.5(2aPE1), adds support for the following new hardware:
• Compute Modular Servers:
– Cisco UCSME-1414 1 Socket Server
– Cisco UCSME-2814 2 Socket Server
• CPUs:
– UCS-CPU-E31231D
– UCS-CPU-E31241D
– UCS-CPU-E31271D
– UCS-CPU-E31281D
– UCS-CPU-E52630D
– UCS-CPU-E52640D
– UCS-CPU-E52650D
– UCS-CPU-E52660D
• DIMMS:
– UCS-MR-1X081RU-A
– UCS-MR-1X162RU-A
New Software Features
Cisco UCS Platform Emulator, Release 2.5(2aPE1) includes the following new features:
• Templates (pre-configured cartridges with servers on the control panel) for new modular
servers:
– ME1414 High
– ME2814 Medium
– ME2814 High
• Added TPM/TXT support for new modular servers:
– UCSME-1414
– UCSME-2814
Known Limitations
Cisco UCS Platform Emulator, Release 2.5(2aPE1) has the following limitations:
• Download of stripped-down version of UCS Firmware - From UCS PE 2.2(1bPE1) onwards, only
the stripped-down version of size less than 50 KB is available for download. The download of
regular (non-stripped version) version is not supported anymore.
• Recommission and decommission - Chassis and modular server recommission and
decommission are not supported.
• Domain Name Server (DNS) resolution - DNS resolution is not available for Cisco UCS Platform
Emulator. All domain names must be resolved manually using a static IP address.
• Syslog - Cisco UCS Platform Emulator and Cisco UCS Manager integrated with Cisco UCS
Platform Emulator does not produce a syslog.
• Data path - Cisco UCS Platform Emulator does not emulate network data flow. The software
emulates the functions that are necessary for the management plane.
• XML Export in Google Chrome - The Startup Hardware Configuration user interface allows you
to save the XML-formatted hardware configuration to a local computer. This is the client
computer that is running the browser. To save the file, click Export Configuration to XML File >
Save as… and then save the XML text to a local file. However, If you are using Google Chrome,
you must save the file as a .txt file. If you save the file in another format such as .xml, Google
Chrome adds unnecessary HTML tags in the saved file produces an incorrect XML format.
• Microsoft Internet Explorer - Microsoft Internet Explorer does not support the Cisco UCS
Platform Emulator Model Object Browser and Start-up Inventory features. To use these features,
you must use a Mozilla-compatible browsers such as Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome. Internet
Explorer Version 8.0 and later supports other Cisco UCS Platform Emulator features.
• Cut-through interfaces - Cut-through interfaces to equipment such as IPMI and SNMP, are not
supported. Servers in a Cisco UCS domain contain integrated management controllers (CIMCs),
each of which supports an IPMI interface. The fabric interconnect components of Cisco UCS
support an SNMP interface. However, because both fabric interconnects and CIMC are
considered to be endpoints of the Cisco UCS management system, these interfaces are cut-
through interfaces that bypass Cisco UCS Manager, the central management system.
• Serial over LAN, FTP, TFTP, Telnet - Similarly to SNMP and IPMI interfaces, serial over LAN,
TFTP, FTP, and Telnet access (through user-facing or management-plane-facing Ethernet
interfaces) is not available because they bypass the management software and are considered
cut-through access. SSH is supported only to the Cisco UCS Platform Emulator management IP
through the config user for Cisco UCS Manager CLI access.
• Keyboard/Video/Mouse (KVM) - KVM is a cut-through interface. Cisco UCS Platform Emulator
does not support KVM because there are no physical servers attached to the emulation system
to which KVM could connect. Launching the KVM console does not display an error message.
Emulation of high-availability failover— No failover scenario is supported. If one management
process dies, the other does not take over.
• AAA-based authentication (LDAP, RADIUS, TACACs) - In emulation mode, Cisco UCS
Manager accepts security configuration changes, but does not enforce local or remote password
authentication. Any username and password combination can successfully log in to the Cisco UCS
Manager GUI with administrator privileges. If a local user is created with a role and locale, Cisco
UCS Platform Emulator enforces role, privilege, and locale definitions for the user logging in,
allowing an end user to test how roles, privileges, and locales function in Cisco UCS Manager.
• Remote monitoring (SNMP, Syslog, Call Home, Smart Call Home) - Cisco UCS Platform
Emulator does not support remote monitoring of Cisco UCS Manager on any interface except the
Cisco UCS Manager XML API. You can configure SNMP (traps or gets), local or remote syslog,
Call Home, and Smart Call Home remote monitoring in Cisco UCS Platform Emulator but you
cannot send or query data through those interfaces.
• Cisco UCS Manager database backup and restore - Cisco UCS Platform Emulator does not
support full- state back up or restore configurations from within Cisco UCS Manager. If a user
imports a system backup which consists of switch configurations such as VLAN, CallHome, and so
on, the import operation fails.
• Capability catalog - Cisco UCS Platform Emulator does not support updating the capability
catalog in Cisco UCS Manager. Cisco UCS Platform Emulator supports only the original capability
catalog.
• Hardware changes - The following list describes the hardware changes:
– Cisco UCS Platform Emulator does not support adding or removing hardware, such as servers,
chassis, I/O modules, and power supplies, dynamically in the Cisco UCS Platform Emulator
control panel. Adding, modifying, or removing hardware in the Cisco UCS Platform Emulator
startup hardware configuration requires you to restart the Cisco UCS Platform Emulator
application software.
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 firmware 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)
