Cisco UCS Migrates Server Identities Faster and Easier than HP

At some point, every data center has to migrate a complete server identity between two servers.  This could be driven by maintenance needs, server upgrades or DR/HA and SLA requirements.  For DR/HA, Business Continuity requirements mandate that this be done as quickly as possible, which means automation is critical to drive time to productivity restoration.  True automation equals fewer steps and faster implementation, with the smallest possibility for error.  This is more than just setting up a similar server with the same BIOS and firmware and then doing a lot of manual work requiring multiple administrative domains – compute, network and storage.   I’m talking about QoS, vNIC / vHBA setting, storage access and ownership transfers, etc., the whole enchilada, all delivered in an automated repeatable process by design not by accident.

Not surprisingly, Cisco UCS with UCS Manager does the job – fast, complete and in full.  What may be surprising is that Cisco UCS Manager enables you to do this transfer not just from blade server to blade server, you can also do it from blade server to rack server.  UCS Manager comes with and is embedded on the UCS Fabric Interconnects.  I want to emphasize that there is no additional charge for UCS Manager, which is an important consideratin when you look at other companies’ multiple toolsets, agents and databases, most of which carry an additional cost, and which are required to equal UCS Manager functionality.  UCS Manager architecture does not require a separate management server which other designs typically require.

The very best part of the entire activity is that the full migration of the server identity (enabled by Cisco SingleConnect technology) takes just 6 initial steps with UCS Manager; the rest is all about how we deliver on the promise of automation.  UCS Manager lets you use and specify 127+ different server identity parameters including:

48 BIOS Settings

Host BIOS Firmware

Hdwr NIC Teaming (fabric failover)

FC Adapter & Storage Controller Firmware

BIOS & Disk Scrub Actions

IPMI Settings

Dynamic vNICs (VM FEX)

QoS Settings

NIC and HBA Adapter Settings

vHBA WWPN & WWNN Assignment

HBA FC SAN Membership,

NIC Receive Rate & NIC MTU size

FC & iSCSI Boot Parameters

Server UUID

PCIe Bus Scan Order and PCIe Device Slot Placement

And Much Much More…….

The above all sounds good.  Now we need to see ‘proof of delivery’.  Below are the links to a white paper by Principled Technologies that are the real point of this blog – complete (not partial) migration of a server identity from a blade server to a rack server.

The real fun is to watch the accompanying video below.  See for yourself how much time it takes in an apples to apples server identity migration from a blade to a rack server.  Once you take a look at the video (the paper on the right has the full details of the testing), you will find taking a UCS Test Drive worthwhile.

https://youtu.be/mN-aLzGCpEI

The ability of Cisco UCS server to manage both blade and rack servers with a single tool is  UCS Manager. Cisco took a unique approach to computing and focused on the common point of interaction, the fabric. Servers don’t operate in isolation. They are part of a total environment that at the minimum encompasses servers, networking, management and storage – a Fabric Based Infrastructure .  Cisco’s comprehensive and efficient architecture is the key to why customers worldwide are rapidly adopting UCS.

For information on how UCS and UCS Manager integrate with a wide variety of our leading management partners follow this link UCS Manager Ecosystem Partners, and for interoperability with other major systems management tools please see the UCS Interoperability page.