Last Thursday Cisco released version 1.0 of their new multi-UCS-domain management tool,
UCS Central and now it is generally available.

UCS Central is a product that enables IT administrators to manage multiple UCS domains that are managed through individual UCS Managers from a single location through a single interface. UCS Central works closely with UCS Manager and provides consolidated management functionality for multi-UCS-installations. It uses a policy management framework similar to UCS Manager but provides a broader scope of these policies across multiple UCS domains.

In addition, it also provides consolidation of data such as hardware and firmware inventory, faults, ID pools. The product is deployed as a virtual machine that works with the multiple UCS managers. UCS Central manages thousands of physical blade and rack servers that are integrated with UCS fabric interconnects distributed across multiple UCS domains. UCS Central provides a intuitive web based GUI and an accompanying CLI for user access . It also provides an XML API similar to the one found in UCS Manager to provide automation and integration capabilities with higher level systems management tools.

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Last week Nimble Storage announced a new reference architecture with Cisco Systems and VMware for 1.000 simultaneous VDI users, requiring only 3U of rack space, for $43 for storage per desktop. A pre-configured, fully-integrated system – built around the reference architecture, which consists of a Nimble CS220G-X2 array, Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) B-Series Blade server platform, and VMware View 5.1 – enables customers to rapidly provision VDI, realize significant savings over deployment of physical desktops, and achieve high levels of security and central manageability.

Highlights

• Fully validated and tested Nimble Storage, Cisco and VMware reference architecture that eliminates the complexities of configuring compute, networking and storage;
• Nimble Storage conducted load stress tests, including tests for boot storms and software patches, that optimize the system configuration;
• Optimized desktop storage density: $43 per desktop for 1,000 users in 3U of rack space;
• The architecture was tested with a moderate profile steady-state workload;
• Modular product architecture provides easy scalability and support.

Architecture

• Cisco UCS B-Series Blade server platform including six UCS B230 M2 blades, each with dual-socketed 10-core Intel CPU and 256GB RAM;
• Dual, redundant 10 Gigabit Ethernet connections between the Nimble Storage array and Cisco UCS Fabric Interconnect;
• Windows 7 Enterprise virtual desktops with 1.5GB vRAM and one vCPU per desktop;
• One Nimble Storage CS220G-X2 array with twelve 1TB hard disk drives and four 160GB flash SSDs;
• VMware View 5.1 with VMware vSphere.

Today I visited the Cisco booth here at VMworld 2012 in Barcelona and got a inside view of the UCS Central. UCS Central is a tool Cisco is working on to manage multiple Cisco UCS systems/domains. At the moment it is still in beta but they expect to release it Nov/Dec 2012.

UCS Central is serves as the UCS central nervous system and integrates all UCS components across multiple UCS domains, managing server blades, VMs, storage and networking—across multiple chassis—as a single logical domain. UCS Central provides an intuitive GUI with a command-line interface (CLI) and XML API options. It enables real-time configuration and reconfiguration of resources. The built-in XML API provides an open management framework for customers, developers, system integrators and managed service providers to interoperate with Cisco Unified Computing System resources.

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Today NetApp will present a new baby FlexPod called the Express Pod. It’s a small FlexPod ideal for smaller customers for whom the full scale FlexPod is too big and expensive.

In April 2012 I wrote:

So, Cisco and NetApp now include cheaper storage and server components in FlexPod solutions, this leaves the ever expensive Cisco Nexus 5000 network components needed. I would love to see Cisco and NetApp take the last step and also introduce an entry-level Cisco Nexus network based on e.g. the Cisco Nexus 3000 series switches.

It looks like they listened because the new (minimum) Express Pod configuration consists of:

• 2 x Cisco Nexus 3000 switches;
• 2 x Cisco C220 rack servers;
• 1 x NetApp FAS2220.

Two years ago the HP Vice President for Enterprise Servers Storage and Networking, Randy Seidl, said the following:

“A year from now the difference will be (Cisco) UCS (Unified Compute System) is dead and we have had phenomenal market share growth in the networking space.“

Man, he must feel pretty stupid right now. In Q2 of 2012 Cisco realized a 22% market share in the blade server market in North America and a 15% market share worldwide. How’s that for being dead, mister Seidl?

I have sold Cisco UCS solutions for about 18 months now and Cisco has definitely made a good impression in the server market. But there are still a lot of people (customers, (former) colleagues, VMware enthusiasts) who have vaguely heard of Cisco UCS but don’t see the distinct differences with blade server solutions like those from HP, IBM, Dell or Fujitsu.

So I decided to sum up

10 things you should know about Cisco UCS

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As one of the largest Cisco Partners in the Netherlands we do a lot of Cisco UCS implementations and as the first company in the Netherlands with the Cisco Advanced Data Center Architecture Specialization, where the place in the Netherlands for Cisco UCS troubleshooting. Last week a colleague was called to a troubleshoot a customer problem.

The customer was unable to create a 14th Virtual Network Interfaces on their Cisco UCS Virtual Interface Card and 13 interfaces is far from the maximum of 128 or 256 possible virtual interfaces per Cisco UCS VIC. Fortunately the solution appeared to be simple.

In a Cisco UCS environment all centralized intelligent occurs in the Fabric Interconnect. When using Cisco UCS Virtual Interface Cards (VICs) you can create Virtual Network Interfaces (VIFs) which can be presented to individual virtual machines. All of these virtual interfaces that are created show up in the Fabric Interconnects. They are called VIFs (Virtual Interfaces) and use VN-Tags.

The number of VIFs per blade is limited by the most restrictive item in the following list:

• the network connectivity from chassis I/O Module (IOM) to Fabric Interconnect;
• the Adapter VN-Tag namespace;
• the OS/BIOS version.

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NetApp and Cisco have announced an extension to their joint FlexPod solution with a package which better suits smaller companies.

The current FlexPod solution consists of a Cisco UCS server platform and a Cisco network infrastructure combined with a NetApp FAS32xx or 62xx storage solution. It’s a great solution but it is quite expensive for smaller companies running smaller workloads. The sizing was based on the US definition of enterprise and Small and Medium Business (SMB) which is too large compared to European standards.

The components which can make the FlexPod solution costly for smaller companies are the storage and network components of the solution, NetApp FAS32xx or 62xx storage and Nexus 5000 switches.

NetApp and Cisco have now addressed the first issue and added the NetApp FAS2240 to the FlexPod solution stack. In the past the NetApp FAS2000 series wasn’t suitable for FlexPod because it lacked 10Gb ethernet support which is required in a FlexPod solution. But with the introduction of the NetApp FAS2240 this limitation was dropped but that’s not enough to use the FAS2240 in a FlexPod solution. A new component must first be tested in combination with all other components and if the new component is suitable, new validated designs must be developed which include the NetApp FAS2240.

Besides that, in the past FlexPod could only be build on Cisco UCS blade servers. The new entry-level FlexPod now also includes Cisco C-series servers.

The specifications for the new entry-level FlexPod Solution are:

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Today Imtech ICT announced that it is the first company in the Netherlands which has achieved the Advanced Data Center Architecture Specialization from Cisco.

Cisco Data Center Architecture Specialization tests knowledge in selling, designing, installing, and supporting the Data Center Architecture. This specialization recognizes Data Strategy as having fulfilled the training requirements and program prerequisites to sell, design and deploy comprehensive Cisco Data Center solutions.

With achieving the Cisco Advanced Data Center Architecture Specialization, Imtech ICT has shown that it has the required knowledge to design, supply, implement, maintain and manage the products from the Cisco Datacenter portfolio. It fits the Imtech ICT strategy to integrate various IT infrastructure domains (network, server and storage) into one integral solution. This solution is based on the FlexPod concept, a collaboration with Cisco, NetApp and VMware.

This enables Imtech ICT to support their customers with their issues regarding the data-center, virtualized infrastructures and private- and public- cloud services.

In the past, when I had to design a virtual infrastructure, I had a limited range of server hardware to pick from. Mainly HP and Dell or an occasional IBM server.

But since the beginning of this year I can not bypass Cisco. It is still a bit strange to some people when you mention Cisco with regards to server hardware but it’s a force we can’t ignore anymore.

When Cisco released their UCS server portfolio one and a half/two years ago, nobody thought they would storm the server market as they did. Certainly with their blade server solution they have a very appealing solution which can easily compete with HP, Dell and IBM blade solutions.

Personally I love to configure a Cisco UCS blade solution because it’s so freakin’ easy. One blade enclosure, one switch type, only two management entities and only seven different blade servers. This sounds a bit like a limited solution but trust me the possibilities are endless and performance is great.

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Cisco has been around for years and years on the networking and security side but since a year or so they are a real upcoming player on the server market. Personally I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing Cisco’s Unified Computing Systems first hand and WOW I’m impressed.

On March 23, 2011 (1:00 PM – 2:00 PM GMT) and on March 30, 2011 (2:00 PM - 3:00 PM) Cisco organizes a UCS C-Series – Competitive Update Webinar for you to learn more about the Cisco rack mount server offering.

When you attend this Webinar you will learn about UCS C-Series value proposition and receive an overview and competitive portfolio comparisons. You will also receive guidance on UCS competitive pricing and architectural comparison. Specific areas of focus are management, stateless computing, optimized virtualization, and unified I/O all of which impact TCO.

When you are also interested in Cisco rack mount servers, you can register here.

Last night I received an e-mail from Cisco thanking me for my work in the Nexus 1000V beta program and announcing the availability of the final product.

For those of you that don’t know the Cisco Nexus 1000V, it is a pure software implementation of a Cisco Nexus switch which can be used in vSphere 4. It resides on a server and integrates with the hypervisor to deliver VN-Link virtual machine-aware network services.

Yesterday Cisco revealed more details about their Unified Computing System. The term was announced some time ago but nobody really knew what Cisco was planning. Some people even thought that Cisco was about to take over VMware as we already talked about in this article. Luckily this is not the case and even the opposite is true.

Cisco and VMware join forces in Cisco’s Unified Computing System which will incorporate product engineering and integrated sales and support strategies for datacenter virtualization and unified computing. The resulting combination of the Cisco Unified Computing System with VMware’s virtualization platform will provide customers with access to a unique and powerful virtualized and physical computing system over an intelligent, unified network fabric.

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Today we did our first Hands-on-Lab. Last year these labs were fully booked so we decided to hit the lab early this year.

This lab was based around the Cisco Nexus 1000v virtual switch, which brings back network administration to network administrators.

Erik did the Cisco Nexus 1000v lab today. Since we didn’t receive any beta material yet this is our first real experience with the new virtual switch by Cisco.The switch is based on NX-OS so network administrators can use it just like they configure their other switches.

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After the earlier news that Cisco was enlarging its stake in VMware now the news gets out that Intel sold half of its shares.

Intel disclosed that it had recently sold 1 million shares in the virtualization software maker and plans to sell another 3.75 million VMware shares on the open market. 500.000 of these shares were bought by Cisco. Another 500.000 were bought by EMC, VMware’s mother company.

After the rumors of Intel buying VMware from EMC one has to wonder what the future has in store for VMware. Also Cisco’s membership of Microsoft’s Server Virtualization Validation Program and the expansion of shares gives enough to speculate about.

Looking for information about iSCSI, Cisco and VMware I stumbled onto a document which I want to share with all of you. Want to know about vswitches, portgroups, security, ether channels, scalability, security, performance, VLAN tagging, N-port ID virtualization, iSCSI implementations?

In ‘VMware Infrastructure 3 in a Cisco Network Environment‘ all ins and out of VMware networking are described. 90 pages of pure networking wisdom.

Another valueable document I found is the VMware iSCSI Design Considerations and Deployment Guide. When you are designing and /or implementing an iSCSI solution this is a document you should read.