Introduction to Cisco Unified Computing System Infrastructure

Cisco Unified Computing System Overview

Figure 1. Cisco UCS Architecture



Cisco UCS has a unique architecture that integrates compute, data network access, and storage network access into a common set of components under a single-pane-of-glass management interface.

Cisco UCS fuses access layer networking and servers. This high-performance, next-generation server system provides a data center with a high degree of workload agility and scalability. The hardware and software components support Cisco's unified fabric, which runs multiple types of data center traffic over a single converged network adapter.

Architectural Simplification

The simplified architecture of Cisco UCS reduces the number of required devices and centralizes switching resources. By eliminating switching inside a chassis, network access-layer fragmentation is significantly reduced. Cisco UCS implements Cisco unified fabric within racks and groups of racks, supporting Ethernet and Fibre Channel protocols over 10 Gigabit Cisco Data Center Ethernet and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) links. This radical simplification reduces the number of switches, cables, adapters, and management points by up to two-thirds. All devices in a Cisco UCS domain remain under a single management domain, which remains highly available through the use of redundant components.

High Availability

The management and data plane of Cisco UCS is designed for high availability and redundant access layer fabric interconnects. In addition, Cisco UCS supports existing high availability and disaster recovery solutions for the data center, such as data replication and application-level clustering technologies.

Scalability

A single Cisco UCS domain supports multiple chassis and their servers, all of which are administered through one Cisco UCS Manager. For more detailed information about the scalability, speak to your Cisco representative.

Flexibility

A Cisco UCS domain allows you to quickly align computing resources in the data center with rapidly changing business requirements. This built-in flexibility is determined by whether you choose to fully implement the stateless computing feature. Pools of servers and other system resources can be applied as necessary to respond to workload fluctuations, support new applications, scale existing software and business services, and accommodate both scheduled and unscheduled downtime. Server identity can be abstracted into a mobile service profile that can be moved from server to server with minimal downtime and no need for additional network configuration. With this level of flexibility, you can quickly and easily scale server capacity without having to change the server identity or reconfigure the server, LAN, or SAN. During a maintenance window, you can quickly do the following:

  • Deploy new servers to meet unexpected workload demand and rebalance resources and traffic.

  • Shut down an application, such as a database management system, on one server and then boot it up again on another server with increased I/O capacity and memory resources.

Optimized for Server Virtualization

Cisco UCS has been optimized to implement VM-FEX technology. This technology provides improved support for server virtualization, including better policy-based configuration and security, conformance with a company's operational model, and accommodation for VMware's VMotion.

Cisco UCS Manager Overview

Cisco UCS Manager is embedded software that resides on the fabric interconnects, providing complete configuration and management capabilities for all of the components in the Cisco UCS system. This configuration information is replicated between the two fabric interconnects, providing a highly available solution for this critical function. The most common way to access UCS Manager for simple tasks is to use a Web browser to open the Java-based GUI. For command-line or programmatic operations against the system, a command-line interface (CLI) and an XML API are also included with the system.

The Cisco UCS Manager GUI provides role-based access control (RBAC) to allow multiple levels of users granular administrative rights to system objects. Users can be restricted to certain portions of the system based on locale, which corresponds to an optional organizational structure that can be created within the system. Users can also be classified based on their access levels or areas of expertise, such as “Storage Administrator,” “Server Equipment Administrator,” or “Read-Only”. RBAC allows the comprehensive capabilities of the Cisco UCS Manager GUI to be properly shared across multiple individuals or teams within your organization in a flexible, secure manner.

Cisco UCS Manager provides unified, embedded management of all software and hardware components. Every instance of Cisco UCS Manager and all of the components managed by it form a domain. For organizations that deploy multiple Cisco UCS domains, Cisco UCS Central software providesa centralized user interface that allows you to manage multiple, globallydistributed Cisco UCS domains with thousands of servers. Cisco UCS Central integrates with Cisco UCS Manager and utilizes it to provide globalconfiguration capabilities for pools, policies, and firmware.