CISCO UCS / UNABLE TO VIEW ONBOARD NICS ON CISCO C240 M3

[kirk_boyd]

Morning / Afternoon All,

I wonder if anyone can help.

We have setup a UCS environment which contains 5 x C240 M3 servers.  They are all managed via UCS so are in UCS managed mode.

I installed 2 x 4 NIC cards into the server via the PCIE configuration slots and I can seem them fine via UCS however I'm unable to view the onboard NICS.  I discovered this when I installed ESXI-5.0 (cisco version) on one of the servers.

I'm at a bit of a loss as to why I cannot seem them.  I though potentially it might be something in the BIOS however we have a BIOS policy set via UCS ut nothing mentioneds anything about enabling the onboard NICS.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Kirk

[sivaksiv]

Hi Kirk,

refer doc below for supported cards with UCSM

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/c-series_integration/ucsm2-0-2/b_UCSM_202_C-Integration/b_UCSM_202_C-Integration_chapter_011.html

The following are the only supported card combinations for the servers to be used in UCSM mode.

•  Only Cisco Virtual Interface Cards (VICs) installed in the server. Do not mix with CNAs or Ethernet cards.
•  Only one type of CNA (Q or E) installed in the server. Do not mix with VICs or Ethernet adapters.
•  Only one type of Ethernet adapter (B or I) installed in the server. Do not mix with VICs or CNAs.

-

Siva

[kirk_boyd]

Hi Siva,

To clarify, we have the following configuration in each server:

1 x VIC card -> All interfaces seen in UCS

2 x 4 Port NIC cards -> All interfaces seen in UCS

1 x 4 onboard 1GB NICS -> No interfaces seen in UCS.

So I take it from the documentation above, I can only have 1 VIC card and NO other Ethernet cards and the onboard NICS won't work?

[sivaksiv]

HI Kirk,

Thats right. 

Regards,

Siva

[kirk_boyd]

Thanks for the prompt reply Siva.

I guess installing an additional NIC would solve this issue don't you think?

[Manuel Velasco]

Hi kird, having the extra cards it only means that ucs won't be able to manage the via UCSM, but those extra card should still work on your server. If you check on the OS you will notice that these interfaces are found there. Now with respect to the notes about mixing adapters, this only applies during integration process as some servers support multiple integration cards, for integration you don't want to mix these cards. Also note that you will only be able to use the VIC card to send traffic via the fabric interconnects, if you want to use any of the other cards including the onboard nics you will have to connect these directly to your upstream switch. Let me know if this makes sense

[Keny Perez]

Kirk,

Just to be sure I understand you, you have you rack servers integrated to UCSM and you cant use the embedded LOM ports?  If that is the case, when you integrate the server to UCSM, the interfaces you can use are the interfaces you create with your VIC card... as of the VIC 1225 (just to give you an example cause we have other 2 VIC cards) you can create up to 256 virtual interfaces that you can create with the Service Profile.

-Kenny