UCS GUI on C240

[Evan Ray]

I would like to bring in Cisco UCS in our environment.  I'm new to UCS, and would love to take advantage of this opportunity to learn UCS.  Now are budget is low, so we were looking at bringing on a couple C240 servers to create a HA environment.  I was told by a colleague that the GUI for the Cisco UCS server is only found on the blade servers.  Is this accurate?  Basically where you configure the fabric and such, so I wanted to double check on the forums.

[Walter Dey]

C-series servers can run standalone, or integrated with UCS Manager (GUI); the latter requires additional components, like fabric interconnects. see eg.

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/c-series_integration/ucsm2-2/b_C-Series-Integration_UCSM2-2/b_C-Series-Integration_UCSM2-2_chapter_01.html

[Evan Ray]

Thanks wdey!!  Is that an added cost?  Is that something I need to tell my Cisco vendor prior to purchasing, or can I add on what's needed later?

[Walter Dey]

Yes, Fabric Interconnects are additional Capex; however, the more servers you have, the less this overhead counts; a UCS domain has a upper limit of 160 servers (either all rack, all blade, or mix of rack and blade).

If I understand you correctly, you intend to go with C240 rack mount servers ? is there any specific reason ? did you consider a blade solution as well ? how many servers (rack or blade) do you need ?

Cisco will be shortly announcing miniUCS addressing SMB market ! Maybe this is a solution for you as well.

Datacenter-in-a-box solution combining computing, networking and management capabilities within a single platform, a.k.a UCS “Mini”.

The UCS Mini chassis (Based on current blade chassis hardware), will allow for backward/forward compatibility of the current components (blade servers, PSUs, fans…), while allowing for the insertion of new Fabric Interconnects (6324) within the current IOM slots. This easy to setup solution will leverage the UCS Manager and UCS Central to provide:

• A single point of management across multiple Datacenters,
• The use of XML APIs for automation purposes,
• And the benefits that allowed for the success of the UCS platform (Service Profiles, Unified Fabric, Low Power & Pooling Footprint…).

[Evan Ray]

Thanks so much for all the info!  Being new to UCS this is great!!  

That's correct, we'll be going with two C240 rack mount servers.  I didn't consider the blade solution simply because of cost.  I started with the C220, but for just a little more in cost I went with the C240 for the PCI-X expansion slots.  We haven't purchased anything yet, I've simply created a proposal to purchase.  It's still a long shot with the cost of a UCS server compared to something like an HP.  

We have a small data center that I run, and I want to get data center grade equipment in it.  Currently these two UCS servers will be configured with ESXi in a HA configuration for 1 VM.  The VM is a hard hitting SQL server.  I plan to add more VMs as I monitor the performance and resources used.  I plan to connect the UCS servers to a couple of Nexus 5ks and an EMC SAN for shared storage.

Very interesting to hear about the miniUCS.  That might end up in my lab at home :)

[Evan Ray]

wdey,

It looks like you are very knowledgeable in UCS, so let me ask you why would you choose UCS over other servers?  I know this will be the first question my upper management will ask me.  Why don't we just go with an HP or Dell server which is much cheaper?

I believe it's because the grade of server and reliability.  Server specs isn't really a factor, respectively because you can configure an HP or Dell with the same processor or RAM.

[Walter Dey · Accepted solution]

On April 2009, Cisco disrupted the computing world by announcing its Fabric Computing solution, the Unified Computing Platform. Five years later,  UCS became (Cisco UCS #1 x86 Blade Server Platform In The Americas).

There are many differentiators, but the main is the scale out of UCS with regards to Capex and Opex.

A so called UCS domain of up to 160 servers are managed as one entity; this includes Ethernet and Fibrechannel connectivity, servers (BIOS, I/O adaptor, CIMC,...).

So with 2 physical servers, you are of course at the low limit; I know many SMB customers, who started with 4-5 blades and one chassis, extending this after a few months.

miniUCS is exactly addressing this market: remote/branch offices and SMBs having requirements that fall within the 4-6 server range.

.

[Keny Perez]

How about Cisco TAC support as a plus against other vendors ;)

-Kenny

[adawa]

Hello, NinjaTurtle5. Cisco UCS Manager is provided at no additional cost with every UCS platform. Are you already working with any Cisco partner for this proposal? Feel free to e-mail me (adawa@cisco.com), if you have additional concerns or need local support. Kind regards.