Need help w/UCS-B420

[Daniel Musca]

Hi,

I'm trying to setup a B420 in our lab, but just found out the 6324 F/I doesn't support B420s in the UCS Mini configuration. I read through the documentation and it wasn't clear to me at time of order. It's only when I assembled all the components (B420, 5108AC2, 6324FI) that I found it wouldn't recognize the adapter (ie the B420) from the UCS-M GUI. It's only later I found out about the incompatibility from online CCIE training documentation.

"Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect Data Sheet

A word of caution about the blade support, or lack thereof - the new FI's will not support anything except for the B200 M3 blades, so if the four socket B420 blades are on your shopping list, then consider using the full featured FI's.

The new FI's support up to 15 servers (8 B-series blade servers in a single new revision UCS 5108 chassis and up to 7 direct-connect C-series C220/240 M3 rack servers, with a post-release feature support for interconnecting a second UCS-5108 blade chassis)."

So now instead of rushing out to buy new hardware, I'd like to make sure I get it right once and for all. The questions I have are:

1) Will a B420 work in a 5108 AC2 chassis? I didn't find anything in the documentation saying it wouldn't but now I have my doubts.

2) If yes, what other hardware do I need to get it working (FEX, F/I's, etc.)?

All I'm looking for at the moment is to get the server loaded with linux. Once I have that working I'll move on to bigger and better.

Thank you,

Dan 

[Qiese Dides]

Hi Daniel,

Where you looking at the B420 M3 or M4. Below I described both blade hardwares for you.

For the B420 M3; you can reference the following spec sheet;

http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/servers-unified-computing/ucs-b-series-blade-servers/b420m3_specsheet.pdf

On page 5 Table 1 it states that the 5100 Chassis will work. Page 42 Table 29 show the FEX's you can use (2208, 2204, 2104 FEX). Page 45 Table 31 will show all the different types of adapters.

Since you are using the 5100 chassis the 6200 Fabric Interconnects will be supported.

For the B420 M4

http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/servers-unified-computing/ucs-b-series-blade-servers/b420m4-spec-sheet.pdf

Page 44 shows 

This section shows how the supported adapter card configurations for the B420 M4 connect to the Fabric Extender modules in the 5108 blade server chassis. Table 8 shows the 2208 Fex and 2204 Fex (Different then B420 M3).

So that means 5100 Chassis is supported with the 2208 FEX and 2204 FEX. Which means the 6200 Fabric Interconnects are supported.

Please let me know if this helps, rating and marking solutions will help other people find valuable information.

Qiese Dides

[Daniel Musca]

Hi Qiese,

Thanks you for the quick response. Sorry I didn't specify which server I was referring to. It's the B420 M4.

I read through the documentation and I think I have a better idea of what is needed. Could you please confirm the following parts will work together and that no other (major) hardware will be required to get this server operational:

- 1x UCSB-420-M4

- 1x UCSB-5108-AC2

- 1x UCSB-MLOM-40G-1 (VIC 1240)

- 1x 2204 FEX

- 1x 6200 Fabric Interconnect (not clear this will work with the VIC 1240 (see below). Maybe I need the 6100 FI. But will the 6100 work with the 5108 chassis?

"If using 6100 Series Fabric Interconnects, configure only the VIC 1240/1280 adapters. If using 6200 Series Fabric Interconnects, configure only the VIC 1340/1380 adapters." - Cisco UCS B420 M4 Blade Server guide.

What do you think?

Thank you,

Dan

[skarthic]

B420M4 supported from 3.0.2 release

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/release/notes/CiscoUCSManager-RN-3-1.html#reference_0A561B21F59A413F8F263D58E28202B5

B420M4 was not supported in the first UCS mini release(3.0.1x) and you might have come across one such doc.

Currently mini supports all M3 and M4 blades except the B2604and B460M4s

Regards,
Karthic

[Daniel Musca]

Hi Karthic/Qiese,

After much reading from many different documents (some not always up to date), I think I have a final configuration that should work:

- 1x UCSB-420-M4

- 1x UCSB-5108-AC2

- 1x UCSB-MLOM-40G-1 (VIC 1240)

- 1x 2204 FEX

- 1x 6248UP Fabric Interconnect

Please let me know if you agree this configuration will work.

Thank you,

Dan

[Qiese Dides]

Hi Daniel,

that configuration will work. Are you sure you do not want 2 Fabric Interconnects and 2 FEX's for redundancy. Having only one Fabric Interconnect would mean if it went down your whole production would be down.

Regards,

Qiese Dides

[Daniel Musca]

Hi Qiese,

Thanks for the quick reply. I understand the limitations/liabilities of only having one of each module, but this is for a lab. There will be no live customer data on this server.

Dan

[Qiese Dides · Accepted solution]

Awesome, your setup will work perfectly then.