Looking into UCS. Do I need UCS Director?

[Jason Flory]

Hello Everyone

I am brand new to UCS.  I am getting quotes from Cisco on new UCS system.  About a year ago we got quotes for this system to add to next years budget and on this quote there is a new item and that is about 10K for UCS support package.

In reading about this it sounded like this was for really large environments.  

Our environment is going to be one chassis and 8 blades.  5 of the blades will be used for Hyper V cluster which is managed by SCVMM and orchestrator for automation.  In a few years we may look into getting another system for failover site.

Changes on VM environment are not frequent.  About 100 VMs

Thanks 

[Keny Perez]

What you need to know if what UCS Director is used for. This could be of help http://www.slideshare.net/CiscoPublicSector/cisco-ucs-director-overview ; this is another tool on our effort to make manageability easier.

More info here as well: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/ucs-director/vsphere-install-guide/4-1/b_Installing_UCSDirector_on_vSphere_41/b_Installing_UCSDirector_on_vSphere_41_chapter_01.html#concept_F06170DFFB5B4F238757DA5F71F76E42

If you dont care about doing everything manually then you should not need it, but think about how much you will grow in the mid-long term.

HTH,

-Kenny

[Walter Dey]

In your environment (almost static), UCS Manager (which doesn't require a license, bundled with fabric interconnect) is ok.

UCS Director (the name is misleading) allows automatic provisioning and automation of the infrastructure (Ethernet and Fibrechannel switches, UCS, storage).

In your case with a Windows Hyper-V environment, I would recommend to look into Powershell / Powerscripts. UCS has a library of around 1800 commandlets; its free of charge.

Everything you can do with GUI (UCSM), can be done with PS scripts.

http://www.thomasmaurer.ch/2013/08/manage-your-cisco-ucs-with-windows-powershell/

http://www.thomasmaurer.ch/2013/10/cisco-ucs-powershell-convertto-ucscmdlet/