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A server pool contains a set of servers. These servers typically share the same characteristics. Those characteristics can be their location in the chassis, or an attribute such as server type, amount of memory, local storage, type of CPU, or local drive configuration. You can manually assign a server to a server pool, or use server pool policies and server pool policy qualifications to automate the assignment.
If your system implements multitenancy through organizations, you can designate one or more server pools to be used by a specific organization. For example, a pool that includes all servers with two CPUs could be assigned to the Marketing organization, while all servers with 64 GB memory could be assigned to the Finance organization.
A server pool can include servers from any chassis in the system. A given server can belong to multiple server pools.
When you select a specific server pool, you can view the individual details for that pool, including the number of servers included in the pool, and the associated qualification policies.
To watch a video on creating a server pool, see Video: Creating a Server Pool.
After you create the server pool, you can assign it to a service profile template. See Video: Assigning a Server Pool to a Global Service Profile Template.
Step 1 | In the Actions
bar, type
Create
Server Pool and press
Enter.
This launches the Server Pool dialog box. |
Step 2 | In Basic, click Organization and select the location in which you want to create the server pool. |
Step 3 | Enter a Name and optional Description. |
Step 4 | In
Qualification, click
Add to add new qualification policies, or
Delete to remove existing ones.
For more information, see Creating or Editing a Server Pool Qualification Policy. |
Step 5 | In Servers, add the servers to be included in the pool. |
Step 6 | Click Create. |
The server pool qualification policy qualifies servers based on the server inventory conducted during the discovery process. You can configure these qualifications or individual rules in the policy to determine whether a server meets the selection criteria. For example, you can create a rule that specifies the minimum memory capacity for servers in a data center pool.
Qualifications are used in other policies to place servers, not just by the server pool policies. For example, if a server meets the criteria in a qualification policy, it can be added to one or more server pools or have a service profile automatically associated with it. You can use the server pool policy qualifications to qualify servers according to the following criteria:
IP pools are a collection of IP IPv4 or IPv6 addresses. You can use IP pools in Cisco UCS Central in one of the following ways:
For external management of Cisco UCS Managerservers.
For iSCSI boot initiators.
For both external management and iSCSI boot initiators in Cisco UCS Manager.
![]() Note | The IP pool must not contain any IP addresses that were assigned as static IP addresses for a server or service profile. |
A fault is raised if the same IP address is assigned to two different Cisco UCS domains. If you want to use the same IP address, you can use the scope property to specify whether the IP addresses in the block are public or private:
public—You can assign the IP addresses in the block to multiple Cisco UCS domains.
private—You can assign the IP addresses in the block to one and only one registered Cisco UCS domain.
Cisco UCS Central creates public IP pools by default.
Global IP pools should be used for similar geographic locations. If the IP addressing schemes are different, the same IP pool cannot be used for those sites.
Cisco UCS Central supports creating and deleting IPv4 and IPv6 blocks in IP pools. However, iSCSI boot initiators support only IPv4 blocks.
After creating an IP pool you can edit it by selecting the Edit icon on the overall summary page of the selected IP pool. To select an IP pool, go to All Pools page and select the IP pool that you want to edit. The page redirects you to the overall summary page of the selected IP pool.
An IQN pool is a collection of iSCSI Qualified Names (IQNs) for use as initiator identifiers by iSCSI vNICs in a Cisco UCS domain. IQN pools created in Cisco UCS Central can be shared between Cisco UCS domains.
IQN pool members are of the form prefix:suffix:number, where you can specify the prefix, suffix, and a block (range) of numbers.
An IQN pool can contain more than one IQN block, with different number ranges and different suffixes, but share the same prefix.
![]() Note | In most cases, the maximum iSCSI Qualified Name (IQN) size (prefix + suffix + additional characters) is 223 characters. When using the Cisco UCS NIC M51KR-B adapter, you must limit the IQN size to 128 characters. After creating an IQN pool you can edit it by selecting the Edit icon on the overall summary page of the selected IQN pool. To select an IQN pool, go to All Pools page and select the IQN pool that you want to edit. The page redirects you to the overall summary page of the selected IQN pool. |
Include the IQN suffix pool in a service profile or a service profile template.
A UUID suffix pool is a collection of SMBIOS UUIDs that are available to be assigned to servers. The first number of digits that constitute the prefix of the UUID are fixed. The remaining digits, the UUID suffix, are variable values. A UUID suffix pool ensures that these variable values are unique for each server associated with a service profile which uses that particular pool to avoid conflicts.
If you use UUID suffix pools in service profiles, you do not have to manually configure the UUID of the server associated with the service profile. Assigning global UUID suffix pools from Cisco UCS Central to service profiles in Cisco UCS Central or Cisco UCS Manager allows them to be shared across Cisco UCS domains.
After creating a UUID pool you can edit it by selecting the Edit icon on the overall summary page of the selected UUID pool. To select a UUID pool, go to All Pools page and select the UUID pool that you want to edit. The page redirects you to the overall summary page of the selected UUID pool.
Include the UUID suffix pool in a service profile or service profile template.