Cisco UCS M-Series Modular Servers

Flexibility and Scalability for Distributed Workloads

Cisco UCS M-Series Modular Servers deliver exceptional value for CloudScale, online gaming, and high-performance computing (HPC). Built around Cisco's virtual interface card (VIC) technology and the policy-based management of UCS Manager, this new design brings the award-winning architecture and management of Cisco Unified Computing to the world of parallelized workloads.

Features and Capabilities

Today's new breed of cloud applications demand a different, better architecture. Compute needs to be separate from infrastructure to increase density, deliver easier scale, and provide the best design for management, efficiency, and performance.

The UCS M-Series Modular Server was architected specifically for the highly parallelized workloads typically found in cloud, online gaming, multi-variable computing, and HPC.

This unique new design eliminates the complexity of traditional servers by disaggregating the underlying component parts. Under-utilized and over-provisioned local resources that have historically inside traditional servers (such as hard disk drives, I/O, base board, and network controllers) are now aggregated and shared across multiple compute nodes.

These sub-components include:

• Power
• Cooling
• I/O
• Hard drives
• Management

Cisco has pulled the legacy sub-systems that still exist in other solutions fully into the infrastructure and completely off the compute nodes. This separation of components by the UCS M-Series Modular Server platform decouples the lifecycles of the component sub-systems. It is no longer necessary to replace an entire system because the processors, hard drives, or I/O need updated or refreshed.

The UCS M-Series allows application performance to be optimized by scaling sub-systems to achieve the best ratio of compute to I/O to storage in small discreet increments. This new design also allows for smaller increments of scale, so your applications have the number of compute nodes that they require to achieve the desired performance and availability. No more over-provisioning, and no more wasted resources.

With this groundbreaking design, the UCS M-Series provides a highly dense, modular, and power-efficient platform designed to meet the needs of parallelized workloads. The M-Series provides for:

• Performance and Watt usage
• Compute capacity and rack unit space

The UCS M-Series Modular Server system features a new two-rack-unit (RU) chassis built on the foundation of Cisco innovation in VIC technology. All Cisco UCS M4308 Modular Chassis connect to a pair of Cisco UCS Fabric Interconnects with UCS Manager, providing easy, fast scalability with industry-leading UCS management.

Award-winning Cisco UCS Manager provides management for the M-Series with consistency and simplicity in device management. UCS Manager is a model-based, automated tool for element management that allows for easy integration with higher-level tools using our open XML API.

You no longer need costly and time-consuming professional services just to expand your compute capacity. With the Cisco M-Series Modular Server solution, scaling is now easy and affordable.