Google Hangout “What’s new in world of UCS Manager with version 2.2(1b)”

Great Google Hangout on the latest Cisco UCS UCSM

Join Cisco Technical Marketing Engineers and other data center management experts for a discussion on UCS Manager update for the El Capitan (2.2.1b) Release. You will learn more about the features, and how to implement and deploy on them.

Interesting Features

• usNIC (low latency vNIC good for Hyper-V/ESX. http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/unified_computing/ucs/usnic/b/deployment/2_2/b_Cisco_usNIC_Deployment_Guide_For_B-Series_Blade_Servers.html
• Ability to bypass FEX to connect C-Series with 1225 VIC. “Single Wire Support”.
• Two Factor Authentication for UCS & KVM (Bla, just a pain in the ass, don’t get any idea’s management!)
• Access to CIMC’s without going through FI’s.
• Access to KVM via IP without logging into UCSM. NICE! Putting server hostname in DNS with a subdomain (ucskvm.hostname) would rock. This is big! Now KVM access to a blade can be granted without access to UCSM required.
• OOB monitoring of local storage on blades
• Enhanced Boot Policies! More boot options one being “Secure Boot”.
• Mirrored SSD Cards.
• IPv6 support address pools! FI Management interfaces support IPv6 now. CIMC on M3 blades will support IPv6 (inbound only). Big Win! Have to setup on IPv4 first.
• DIMM Blacklisting building into UCS Monitoring. This will keep servers from crashing until DIMM can be replaced.

The usNIC’s are interesting big time for Hyper-V and ESX. This might be the “big win” feature that makes this update worth while along with KVM access without UCSM login.

Figure 1. Kernel-Based Network Communication versus Cisco usNIC-Based Communication