Table of Contents

Release_Notes_for_Cisco_C-Series_SW_2_0_7.fm

Release Notes for Cisco UCS C-Series Software, Release 2.0(7)

First Published Date: September 17, 2015

Last Revision Date: January 8, 2016

This document describes the new features, system requirements, open caveats and known behaviors for C- series software release 2.0(7) including Cisco Integrated Management Controller software and any related BIOS, firmware, or drivers. Use this document in conjunction with the documents listed in the “Related Documentation” section.

Note We sometimes update the documentation after original publication. Therefore, you should also review the documentation on Cisco.com for any updates.

shows the online change history for this document.

Table 1 Online History Change

Revision

Date

Description

A0

September 17, 2015

Created release notes for Release 2.0(7d).

B0

January 8, 2016

Following changes were made:

- Added the Resolved Caveats section.

- Updated the HUU versions to 2.0(7e).

Contents

This document includes the following sections:

- Introduction

- Supported Features

- Resolved Caveats

- Open Caveats

- Known Behavior

- Related Documentation

- Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request

Introduction

This section includes the following sections:

- Overview of Cisco UCS C3260 Rack Servers

- Hardware and Software Interoperability

- Transceivers Specifications

- Firmware Files

- Host Upgrade Utility

- System Requirements

- Updating the Firmware

- Recommended Best Practices

- Upgrading BIOS and BMC Firmware

Overview of Cisco UCS C3260 Rack Servers

The Cisco UCS C3260 is a modular, dense storage rack server with dual server nodes, optimized for large datasets used in environments such as big data, cloud, object storage, and content delivery.

The UCS C3260 chassis is a modular architecture consisting of the following modules:

- Base Chassis: contains four power supplies, eight fans, and a rail kit.

- Server Node: one or two server nodes, each with two CPUs, 128, 256, or 512 GB of DIMM memory, and a RAID card in pass-through mode or a RAID card with a 1 GB or 4 GB cache.

- System I/O Controller (SIOC): one or two System I/O Controllers, each of which includes a 1300-series VIC.

- Optional Drive Expansion Node: choice of either 4 x 4 TB drives (total capacity: 16TB) or 4 x 6 TB drives (total capacity: 24 TB).

- Solid-State Boot Drives: up to two SSDs per server node.

- The enterprise-class UCS C3260 server extends the capabilities of Cisco's Unified Computing System portfolio in a 4U form factor that delivers the best combination of performance, flexibility, and efficiency gains.

Differences Between Cisco UCS C3160 and C3260 Systems

lists the differences between Cisco UCS C3160 and Cisco UCS 3260 systems.

Table 1-2 Differences Between Cisco UCS C3160 and Cisco UCS C3260

System

Cisco IMC Firmware Minimum

Supported SIOC

Number of Server Nodes Supported

UCSM- Managed or Standalone

Label on Right-Front Handle

Rear-Panel SSD Drives Supported

C3160

2.0(3)

UCSC-C3160-SIOC1

Intel i350

VIC 1227-T

1

Standalone

C3160

2

C3260

2.0(7)

UCSC-C3260-SIOC2

Integrated VIC 1300 Series chip

2 (two SIOCs required; one for each server)

Standalone

C3260

4

(two server nodes required)

1.This SIOC and supported VIC cards are not forward-compatible with the Cisco UCS C3260 system.

1.This SIOC and supported VIC cards are not forward-compatible with the Cisco UCS C3260 system.

2.This SIOC is not backward-compatible with the Cisco UCS C3160 system.

2.This SIOC is not backward-compatible with the Cisco UCS C3160 system.

Hardware and Software Interoperability

for your release located at:

Transceivers Specifications

The Cisco UCS C-Series servers supports a wide variety of 10 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity options using Cisco 10GBASE SFP+ modules.

details the controllers and the supported transceivers.

Table 3 Controllers and SFP+ Twinax Transceivers Support Matrix

Controllers (LOM and PCIe)

10GBASE-CU SFP+ Cable 1 Meter, passive

10GBASE-CU SFP+ Cable 3 Meter, passive

10GBASE-CU SFP+ Cable 5 Meter, passive

10GBASE-CU SFP+ Cable 7 Meter, active

10GBASE-CU SFP+ Cable 10 Meter, active

SFP-H10GB-CU1M

SFP-H10GB-CU3M

SFP-H10GB-CU5M

SFP-H10GB-ACU7M

SFP-H10GB-ACU10M

Cisco UCS Virtual Interface Cards

x

x

x

x

x

Table 4 Controllers and SFP+Optical Transceivers Support Matrix

Controllers (LOM and PCIe)

Intel SR Optics

JDSU (PLRXPL-SC-S43-22-N) SFP+

Cisco SFP-10G-SR

Cisco UCS Virtual Interface Cards

NA

NA

x

Firmware Files

The C-Series software release 2.0(7) includes the following software files:

Table 5 Files in this release

CCO Software Type

File name(s)

Comment

Unified Computing System (UCS) Server Firmware

ucs-c3260-huu-2.0.7e.iso

Host Upgrade Utility

Unified Computing System (UCS) Drivers

ucs-cxxx-drivers.2.0.7.iso

Drivers

Unified Computing System (UCS) Utilities

ucs-cxxx-utils-efi.2.0.7.iso

ucs-cxxx-utils-linux.2.0.7.iso

ucs-cxxx-utils-vmware.2.0.7.iso

ucs-cxxx-utils-windows.2.0.7.iso

Utilities

Note Always upgrade the BIOS, the BMC and CMC from the HUU ISO. Do not upgrade individual components (only BIOS or only BMC or CMC), since this could lead to unexpected behavior. If you choose to upgrade BIOS, the BMC and the CMC individually and not from the HUU ISO, make sure to upgrade both BMC, BIOS and CMC to the same container release. If the BIOS, CMC and the BMC versions are from different container releases, it could result in unexpected behavior. Cisco recommends that you use the Update All option from the Host Upgrade Utility to update the firmware versions of BMC, BIOS, CMC and all other server components (VIC, RAID Controllers, PCI devices, and LOM) together.

Host Upgrade Utility

The Cisco Host Upgrade Utility (HUU) is a tool that upgrades the following firmware:

- Baseboard Management Controller (BMC)

- System BIOS

- Chassis Management Controller (CMC1 and CMC2)

- SAS Expander

- UCSC-C3260-SIOC

- LSI controllers:

– RAID controller for UCS C3X60 Storage Servers

– UCS C3X60 12G SAS Pass through Controller

- HDD

– ST4000NM0023

– MG03SCA400

– PX02SMF040

– ST6000NM0014

The image file for the firmware is embedded in the ISO. The utility displays a menu that allows you to choose which firmware components to upgrade. For more information on this utility see specific version of the:

The ISO image is now named as ucs-<server_platform>-huu-<version_number>.iso.

The Cisco Host Upgrade Utility contains the following files:

Table 6 Files in ucs-c3260-huu-2.0.7e.iso

Server(s)

Type

Component

Version

C3260

BMC

2.0(7e)

BIOS

2.0.7c.0

Chassis Management Controller (CMC1 and CMC 2)

2.0.7e

SAS-EXPANDER

B058

UCSC-C3260-SIOC

4.0(7b)-uboot-4.0(7b)

LSI

RAID controller for UCS C3X60 Storage Servers

24.7.3-0007-0

UCS C3X60 12G SAS Pass through Controller

08.00.03.00-07.01.00.0A-08.17.01.00-09.00.00.00

HDD Firmware

Following table lists the supported HDD models and the firmware versions that can be updated using Host Upgrade Utility (HUU).

Table 7 Supported HDD models and firmware versions

HDD Model

Firmware version

ST4000NM0023

0004

MG03SCA400

5702

PX02SMF040

0205

ST6000NM0014

K0B1

System Requirements

The management client must meet or exceed the following minimum system requirements:

- Sun JRE 1.8.0_ 45 to Sun JRE 1.8.0_ 60

- Microsoft Internet Explorer10 and 11, Mozilla Firefox 30 or higher, Chrome 40 or higher, Safari 7 or higher

Note You may face some issues with Chrome 41 or 43. We recommend you avoid using these versions.

- Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Windows Vista, Apple Mac OS X v10.6, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0 or higher operating systems

Updating the Firmware

Use the Host Upgrade Utility to upgrade the C-Series firmware. Host Upgrade Utility can upgrade the following software components:

- BIOS

- Baseboard Management Controller (BMC)

- Chassis Management Controllers (CMC1 and CMC 2)

- SAS Expander

- LSI Adapters

- System I/O Controller (SIOC)

- HDD firmware

All firmware should be upgraded together to ensure proper operation of your server.

Note Cisco recommends that you use the Update All option from the Host Upgrade Utility to update the firmware versions of BMC, BIOS, CMC and all other server components (VIC, RAID Controllers, and LOM) together.

.

Recommended Best Practices

Best Practices to Configure Cisco UCS 3X60 RAID Controllers

Choosing Between RAID0 and JBOD

The Cisco C3X60 RAID controller supports JBOD mode on the drives where the physical drives are in pass-thru mode and the physical drive is directly exposed to the OS. We recommended you use JBOD mode instead of individual RAID0 volumes when possible.

RAID5/6 Volume Creation

The Cisco C3X60 allows you to create of large RAID5/RAID6 volume by including all the drives in the system with a spanned array configuration (RAID50/RAID60). Where possible, we recommended you to create multiple, smaller RAID 5/6 volumes with fewer drives per RAID array. This provides redundancy and reduces the operations time for initialization, RAID rebuilds and other operations.

Choosing I/O Policy

The I/O policy applies to reads on a specific virtual drive. It does not affect the read ahead cache. RAID volume can be configured in two types of I/O policies. These are:

- Cached I/O - In this mode, all reads are buffered in cache memory. Cached I/O provides faster processing.

- Direct I/O - In this mode, reads are not buffered in cache memory. Data is transferred to the cache and the host concurrently. If the same data block is read again, it comes from cache memory. Direct I/O makes sure that the cache and the host contains the same data.

Although Cached I/O provides faster processing, it is only useful when the RAID volume has a small number of slower drives. With the C3X60 4TB SAS drives, Cached I/O has not shown any significant advantage over Direct I/O. Instead, Direct I/O has shown better results over Cached I/O in a majority of I/O patterns. We recommended you to use Direct I/O (Default Policy) in all cases and to use Cached I/O cautiously.

Background Operations (BGOPS)

Cisco C3X60 RAID Controller conduct different background operations like Consistency Check (CC), Background Initialization (BGI), Rebuild (RBLD), Volume Expansion & Reconstruction (RLM) and Patrol Real (PR).

While these BGOPS are expected to limit their impact to I/O operations, there have been cases of higher impact during some of the operations like Format or similar I/O operations. In these cases, both the I/O operation and the BGOPS may take more time to complete. In such cases, we recommend you to limit where possible concurrent BGOPS and other intensive I/O operations.

BGOPS on large volumes can take an extended period of time to complete, presenting a situation where operations complete and begin with limited time between operations. Since BGOPS are intended to have a very low impact in most I/O operations, the system should function without any issues. If there are any issues that arise while running concurrent BGOPS and I/O operations, we recommend you to stop either activity to let the other complete before reusing and/or schedule the BGOPS at a later time when the I/O operations are low.

Upgrading BIOS and BMC Firmware

Caution When you upgrade the BIOS, BMC or the CMC firmware, you must also upgrade all the three firmwares from the same HUU ISO, or the server may not boot. Do not power off the server until the BIOS, BMC and CMC firmware are updated.

Cisco provides the Cisco Host Upgrade Utility to assist you in upgrading the BIOS, BMC, CMC LOM, LSI storage controller, and Cisco UCS Virtual Interface Cards firmware to compatible levels.

Note When upgrading the CMC and BMC firmware for the servers, ensure that you update using the full image (for example upd-pkg-c3260-cimc.full.2.0.7d.bin or C3260-CMC.2.0.7d.img).

The correct and compatible firmware levels for your server model are embedded in the utility ISO.

To use this utility, use the Cisco Host Upgrade Utility User Guide which includes the instructions for downloading and using the utility ISO. Select the guide from this URL:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps10493/products_user_guide_list.html

Supported Features

This section includes the following topics:

- Supported Features

- Software Utilities

- Supported Platforms

- SNMP

Supported Features

Supported Features in Release 2.0(7d)

The following software features were added in Release 2.0(7d):

- Web user interface is developed using HTML5 with the eXtensible Widget Framework (XWT).

- Chassis level functionality in the standalone mode- shared components such as storage adapters, fans and power supply units are configured at the chassis level.

- Support for up to two server modules.

- Management IP or Hostname that can be used to configure setting on both the servers.

- Chassis Management Controllers (CMC1 and CMC2) for redundancy. When one of the CMCs is active the other acts as a backup.

- Dynamic storage:

– SAS Expanders that allow you to maximize the storage capability of an SAS controller card

– Zoning - support for assigning individual Hard Disk Drives (HDD) to either server in the dedicated or shared modes.

- 40 Gigabit Ethernet System IO Controllers (SIOC).

- Data Center Ethernet connectivity to a server host through a shared dual virtual interface card (VIC).

- Exporting or importing configurations for individual components.

- New BIOS parameters.

Software Utilities

The following standard utilities are available in Release 2.0(7):

- Host Update Utility (HUU)

- Server Config Utility (SCU) including Interactive Offline Diagnostics (IOD)

- BIOS and BMC Firmware Update utilities

The utilities features are as follows:

- Availability of HUU, SCU on the USB as bootable images. The USB also contains driver ISO, and can be accessed from the host operating system.

Supported Platforms

The following platforms are supported in Release 2.0(7):

- UCS-C3260

SNMP

The supported MIB definition for Release 2.0(7) and later releases can be found at the following link: ftp://ftp.cisco.com/pub/mibs/supportlists/ucs/ucs-C-supportlist.html

Note The above link is incompatible with IE 9.0.

Supported Storage Controllers

SNMP supports the RAID controller for UCS C3X60 Storage on C3260 servers.

Resolved Caveats

The following defect was resolved in release 2.0(7e)

Hardware

Defect ID

Symptom

First Affected Release

Resolved in Release

CSCux36351

PIDs not supported for the following hardware:

- HGST_Helium_8T_A7JX

- SS1635 400G/800G

- SanDisk Lighting SSD 400G/1.6T

2.0(7d)

2.0(7e)

Open Caveats

The following section lists the open caveats:

Cisco IMC

Defect ID

Symptom

Workaround

First Affected Release

CSCuv18970

On the C3260 server, low level firmware update does not start automatically after the HUU update.

Power off both the server nodes and manually update Low level firmware using the CLI:

2.0.7(d)

CSCuv51153

On the C3260 server, you may get logged out of WebUI and get prompted to logout indicating that a session is already progress. This happens when browser cookies are not cleared.

Clear cookies from the browser.

options in the browser or you can delete the server specific Cookies by following the below steps:

:

.

2.0.7(d)

section.

section.

Step 3 Select the webUI IP Address in the dialog box and click on close at the right top corner of the selected element.

.

.

Step 4 Select the webUI IP Address and delete the cookie.

CSCuv63296

On the C3260 server, the server properties information, such as, Serial Number, Model is incorrect in the XML API responses.

View this server details using Web UI or CLI.

2.0.7(d)

CSCuv70538

On the C3260 server, when a self-signed certificate is uploaded and the user logs in again, an error is displayed stating the server is not responding.

Wait for two to three minutes for the web application to update all the plug-ins, and then log in.

2.0.7(d)

CSCuv39688

command fails on the CMC when run manually.

None.

2.0.7(d)

CSCuw27217

On the C3260 server, when a static IP is configured, BMC1 and BMC2 management IP is not reachable.

Step 1 Login to CLI by connecting to ssh using the C3260 Management IP.

". This will update BMC mac address in the gateway.

2.0.7(d)

CSCuw10190

On the C3260 server, the CMC may remain unresponsive after a reboot. This may occur after an action that initiates a CMC reboot, for example, activating new CMC firmware or resetting to factory default.

Physically remove and then replace the corresponding SIOC, or AC power cycle the chassis.

2.0.7(d)

External LSI Controllers

Defect ID

Symptom

Workaround

First Affected Release

CSCuu56166

On the C3260 server, after you perform expansion or raid-level migration operations Virtual Drives (VD) do not display the updated size.

Step 4 Check whether the disk is added back with the updated size.

2.0.7(d)

CSCut93836

utility to view the SAS HBA/drives.

None.

2.0.7(d)

XML API

Defect ID

Symptom

Workaround

First Affected Release

CSCuv95856

returns incorrect values. It returns four values instead of two; the two extra values returned show association of SIOC-1 with server node 2 and SIOC-2 with server node 1 which are incorrect.

None.

2.0.7(d)

Utilities

Defect ID

Symptom

Workaround

First Affected Release

CSCuv66222

On the C3260 server, the running CMC firmware version is not activated after a firmware update when the HUU firmware update is running on both server nodes.

Activate the firmware using WebUI or CLI.

2.0.7(d)

VIC firmware

Defect ID

Symptom

Workaround

First Affected Release

CSCuu40185

On the C3260 server, 40G and 4x10G port speed auto negotiation requires additional programming. It uses the cable PID information to negotiate the speed.

Configure the port speed manually using the F8 BIOS utility, command line, or the Web UI.

2.0.7(d)

CSCuv49700

On the C3260 server, when using RoCE on a Cisco VIC interface, to avoid a hardware resource conflict, the remaining features such as VMQ, NVGRE, VxLAN and usNIC must not be configured on the same VIC interface.

None.

2.0.7(d)

CSCuv68277

On the C3260 server, CRC errors are displayed on C3260 SOIC when connected to Nexus 5624Q switches.

None.

2.0.7(d)

BIOS

Defect ID

Symptom

Workaround

First Affected Release

CSCuv66192

On the C3260 server, the dedicated mode network port speed setting of 10Mbps is not available, thus affecting auto-negotiation of port speed. This happens when network switches are only capable of 10Mbps and not compatible with cards supporting 100/1000Mbps speeds.

Use the latest switch available. Older switches support 10 Mbps. However, recent switches support fast Ethernet (100Mbps) and Gigabit Ethernet (1000Mbps) speeds.

2.0.7(d)

Known Behavior

The following section lists the known behaviors:

Cisco IMC

Defect ID

Symptom

Workaround

First Affected Release

CSCuv34476

. This happens after swapping or changing a CMC and making it active or master.

Regenerate the certificate using the Web UI or CLI and reboot the CMC.

2.0.7(d)

CSCuv28734

On the C3260 server, boot or crash file download fails with a Network error, when you use the Chrome 43 version browser for downloading.

Use other browsers or use Chrome version 42.

2.0.7(d)

CSCuu50850

On the C3260 server, you cannot establish an IPMI session to a BMC when BMC is reset to factory default.

Reconfigure user using active CMC.

2.0.7(d)

CSCur77980

On the C3260 server, unable to configure users after resetting CMC to factory defaults. This issue occurs when you attempt to configure a user with a different index number after the reset.

Use the same index number that was used before the reset to configure a user.

2.0.7(d)

CSCuu43406

On the C3260 server, the server does not respond and displays an error message when the GUI is idle for a few minutes. This happens when you use Chrome Version 41.

Use other browsers or use Chrome version 42.

2.0.7(d)

CSCuu43330

On the C3260 server, unable to login to Web UI when the login screen is left idle for a few minutes. This happens when you use Crome Version 41.

Use other browsers or use Chrome version 42.

2.0.7(d)

CSCur60690

When a user is configured using the IPMI on BMC the local user, database may not sync with the active CMC. Hence when the same user is configured with a different index on active CMC this error occurs.

Check for the user index number on the local user database on BMC using IPMI and use the same index number to configure the user using the active CMC’s CLI or Web UI.

2.0.7(d)

External LSI Controllers

Defect ID

Symptom

Workaround

First Affected Release

CSCuu36101

On the C3260 server, MegaRAID card does not support raid level migration when the card has maximum allowed number of virtual drives created on it.

Note This is a limitation of the MegaRAID software stack that requires a temporary or ghost VD to do the RLM operation.

Do not create maximum number of allowed virtual drives.

2.0.7(d)

Related Documentation

For configuration information for this release, please refer to the following:

- Cisco UCS C-Series Servers Integrated Management Controller CLI Configuration Guide

- Cisco UCS C-Series Servers Integrated Management Controller GUI Configuration Guide

The following related documentation is available for the Cisco Unified Computing System:

- Cisco UCS C-Series Servers Documentation Roadmap

- Cisco UCS Site Preparation Guide

- Regulatory Compliance and Safety Information for Cisco UCS

Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request

.

, which lists all new and revised Cisco technical documentation, as an RSS feed and deliver content directly to your desktop using a reader application. The RSS feeds are a free service.

This document is to be used in conjunction with the documents listed in the “Related Documentation” section.

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Release Notes for Cisco UCS C-Series Software

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