Consider the following guidelines when deciding whether to remove or decommission a blade server using Cisco UCS Manager:

Decommissioning a Blade Server

If you want to temporarily decommission a physically present and connected blade server, you can temporarily remove it from the configuration. A portion of the server's information is retained by Cisco UCS Manager for future use, in case the blade server is recommissioned.

Removing a Blade Server

Removing is performed when you physically remove a blade server from the Cisco UCS Manager by disconnecting it from the chassis. You cannot remove a blade server from Cisco UCS Manager if it is physically present and connected to a chassis. After the physical removal of the blade server is completed, the configuration for that blade server can be removed in Cisco UCS Manager.

During removal, active links to the blade server are disabled, all entries from databases are removed, and the server is automatically removed from any server pools that it was assigned to during discovery.

Note	Only servers added to a server pool automatically during discovery are removed automatically. Servers that were manually added to a server pool must be removed manually.

To add a removed blade server back to the configuration, it must be reconnected, then rediscovered. When a server is reintroduced to Cisco UCS Manager, it is treated as a new server and is subject to the deep discovery process. For this reason, it is possible for Cisco UCS Manager to assign the server a new ID that might be different from the ID that it held before.

If the Boot Server link is dimmed in the Actions area, you must shut down the server first.

When you use this procedure to shut down a server with an installed operating system, Cisco UCS Manager triggers the OS into a graceful shutdown sequence.

If the Shutdown Server link is dimmed in the Actions area, the server is not running.

When you use this procedure to shut down a server with an installed operating system, Cisco UCS Manager triggers the OS into a graceful shutdown sequence.

If the Shutdown Server link is dimmed in the Actions area, the server is not running.

When you reset a server, Cisco UCS Manager sends a pulse on the reset line. You can choose to gracefully shut down the operating system. If the operating system does not support a graceful shutdown, the server is power cycled. The option to have Cisco UCS Manager complete all management operations before it resets the server does not guarantee the completion of these operations before the server is reset.

Note

If you are trying to boot a server from a power-down state, you should not use Reset. If you continue the power-up with this process, the desired power state of the servers become out of sync with the actual power state and the servers might unexpectedly shut down at a later time. To safely reboot the selected servers from a power-down state, click Cancel, then select the Boot Server action.

You can now reset a blade server to its factory settings. By default, the factory reset operation does not affect storage drives and flexflash drives. This is to prevent any loss of data. However, you can choose to reset these devices to a known state as well.

Perform the following procedure to reset the server to factory default settings.

Perform the following procedure to rediscover the server and all endpoints in the server. For example, you can use this procedure if a server is stuck in an unexpected state, such as the discovery state.

This procedure removes the inband management IP address configuration from a blade server. If this action is greyed out, no inband configuration was completed.

Perform the following procedure after decommissioning the server and physically removing the server hardware. This procedure removes the non existing stale entry of a blade server from the Decommissioned tab.

Perform the following procedure if you decommissioned a blade server without removing the physical hardware from the chassis, and you want Cisco UCS Manager to rediscover and recommission the server.

Perform the following procedure if you physically removed the server hardware without first decommissioning the server. You cannot perform this procedure if the server is physically present.

If you want to physically remove a server, see Removing a Server from a Chassis.

Sometimes, troubleshooting a server might require you to reset the CMOS. Resetting the CMOS is not part of the normal maintenance of a server.

Sometimes, with the firmware, troubleshooting a server might require you to reset the CIMC. Resetting the CIMC is not part of the normal maintenance of a server. After you reset the CIMC, the CIMC reboots with the running version of the firmware for that server.

If the CIMC is reset, the power monitoring functions of Cisco UCS become briefly unavailable until the CIMC reboots. Typically, the reset only takes 20 seconds; however, it is possible that the peak power cap can exceed during that time. To avoid exceeding the configured power cap in a low power-capped environment, consider staggering the rebooting or activation of CIMCs.

You can clear TPM only on Cisco UCS M4 blade and rack-mount servers that include support for TPM.

Caution

Clearing TPM is a potentially hazardous operation. The OS may stop booting. You may also see loss of data.

Sometimes, an issue with a server might require you to recover the corrupted BIOS. This procedure is not part of the normal maintenance of a server. After you recover the BIOS, the server boots with the running version of the firmware for that server. This radio button might dim if the BIOS does not require recovery or the option is not available for a particular server.

You can view any errors collected during the Power On Self-Test process for a server and its adapters.

Perform the following procedure if the system remains unresponsive and you need Cisco UCS Manager to issue a Non-Maskable Interrupt (NMI) to the BIOS or operating system from the CIMC. This action creates a core dump or stack trace, depending on the operating system installed on the server.