Cisco UCS and Puppet Management Assimilation

Cisco UCS was developed as a software-demarcated infrastructure. Each component is administered via Cisco UCS Manager, and programmatic interfaces for all components are accessible. Cisco UCS is truly “infrastructure in the code form.”Considering infrastructure as code returns numerous advantages, like quicker configuration workflows and faster application lifecycles in general.

Puppet Enterprise is the leading development tool designed for DevOps configuration management. It utilizes an extendable plug-in structural design and dominant declarative language. This simple-to-use platform transparently assimilates the distinctive abilities of Cisco UCS and Cisco Nexus solutions,so that your IT staff is able to efficiently administer networks, servers, and the associated storage assets from a single interface. PuppetRazor is a bare-metal provisioning module which functions in tandem with Cisco UCS hardware platforms to create entirely self-sufficient end-to-end infrastructure-as-code solutions.

Support for the Entire Portfolio

The Cisco UCS administration structure is rules and model powered. It provisions the complete Cisco UCS set: Cisco UCS blade and rack servers, Cisco UCS Mini, Cisco HyperFlex hyperconverged infrastructure, and Cisco UCS C3260 composable infrastructure. Essential to Cisco UCS administration are service profiles, which supply identity for the infrastructure. The infrastructure essentials are stateless,also the network, storage, and server profiles generate an identity for each of the components via Cisco UCS Manager. Cisco UCS, with its amalgamation of model powered design and service profiles, empowers protected and quick automation.

The Puppet Razor module supplies a stout set of programmatic interfaces for provisioning, like accurate control of the target Operating System (Red Hat Linux, Microsoft Windows, etc.) and the objective workload (the server’s role). Cisco UCS service profiles empower malleable definition of the envisioned server role, which is passed spontaneously to Razor. Razor visibly assimilates with Puppet Enterprise, and provisioned nodes are instantaneously taken under management.

Advantages All over the Infrastructure Development

  • Day 0: Configuration and server role consignment with Cisco UCS service profiles

— The Cisco UCS Manager TPM in tandem with the Razornode tagging and policy implementation attributes delivers augmented protection.

— For more customization and automation, we can employ the Cisco UCS Python SDK on GitHub, which comprises a complete set of Python SDK sample code.

  • Day 1: Speedy provisioning via Puppet Razor
  • Day 2 and beyond: Organization and analysis via Puppet Enterprise

— Puppet Enterprise is able to install and administer all facets of a target workload with data received from the Cisco UCS service profiles. This attribute enables instantaneous definition of a target Operating System and workload, which are spontaneously provisioned and delivered into the preferred state.

— Puppet Enterprise’s robust set of modules provision a comprehensive variety of managed and monitored workloads through all foremost Operating System, virtual machine, and compartmentalized environments.

For more information about Cisco UCS, speak to our UCS Licensing Specialists here.

Simplify the Transition to DevOps with Cisco UCS

The comprehensive Cisco UCS management ecosystem gives assimilation with autonomous software vendor (ISV) tools and Cisco tools. It enables you to assimilate client tools and interfaces with Cisco UCS Manager and Cisco UCS Central Software. This environment assists you in more simply utilizing the automation abilities and other advantages of Cisco UCS: a policy-founded and programmable organization which can radically simplify our day-to-day operations. Cisco UCS management and the associated ecosystem support Cisco UCS servers and Cisco HyperFlex Systems alongwith the linked storage.

The Cisco UCS management ecosystem provides tools which encompass the whole service management lifecycle, from service instrumentation, through deployment and configuration, and constant monitoring/analysis. This ecosystem allows you to save your current investments in infrastructure and administration tools. It provisions new tools from Puppet and Chef. You can improve your processes and apply increased automation and effectiveness as you move to the hybrid cloud environments and DevOps systems.

An Open and Scalable Ecosystem with Cisco UCS

Cisco UCS management gives a programmatic console to animatedly deliver computing, storage, and network assets in Cisco UCS and Cisco HyperFlex environments. The API gives a cohesive control plane that enables profound incorporation with wider systems administration tools. The Cisco UCS Manager service profiles enable users to define hardware rules and configurations, like computing, storage, and network connections, in software and to assign resources accordingly. Building on the API, Cisco joins forces with a wide array of high-level systems management applications to incorporate distinctive Cisco UCS abilities inside their native functions and user interfaces. The integrations improve performance analysis of the Operating System and higher layers of this application stack and allow reliable cross-system administration: particularly significant in varied infrastructure environments.

The API also simplifies assimilation and client development via Cisco UCS Power Tool for Microsoft Windows PowerShell and a Python software development kit (SDK).The Cisco UCS Platform Emulator and supporting tools, accessible from the Cisco Communities and DevNet websites, continue to power the rapid growth of the Cisco UCS developer community.

The Cisco UCS management ecosystem provides central management through numerous Cisco UCS and Cisco HyperFlex domains in a single or multiple physical sites, supporting up to 10,000 servers. You can work on a universal scale, putting computing power in close proximity to users while managing infrastructure with centrally defined rules.

Cisco UCS Director works in tandem with Cisco UCS management tools to give complete organization and management of Cisco UCS Integrated Infrastructure and 3rd-party equipment through virtual and physical layers. It provisions a diverse range of 3rd-party server, storage, network devices, and converged and hyperconverged infrastructure. It doesn’t matter whether you obtain a single Cisco UCS management module or a Cisco ONE for Data Center solution,your IT staff canapply new operation and consumption models with much lower risk and highly reduced costs.

For more information about Cisco UCS, speak to our UCS Licensing Specialists here.

Cisco UCS Management and Microsoft System Center Integration

Cisco and Microsoft have cooperated to develop and enhance management packs for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) and PowerShell, so you are now able to systematize data center installation, provisioning, and administration. This programmable regulation is core to the provisioning of hybrid cloud infrastructure and allows self-service provisioning.

The Cisco UCS Management Suite for Microsoft SCOM

A management bundle is a definition file with predefined monitoring settings which allow you to screen a particular service or application via an operations manager. The Cisco UCS Management Pack Suite for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager is an amalgation of management packs which give visibility into the fitness, enactment, and accessibility of Cisco UCS servers managed by Cisco UCS Manager, Cisco UCS Central Software,and Cisco Integrated Management Controller (IMC).

Cisco UCS Manager gives entrenched management for all software and hardware mechanisms in Cisco UCS. It provisions Cisco UCS B-Series Blade Servers, C-Series Rack Servers, and S-Series Storage Servers;

Cisco UCS Mini, and Cisco HyperFlex hyperconverged infrastructure. The IMC provisions C-Series servers in standalone situations.

In addition to checking the health of Cisco UCS, you can also do the below:

  • See Cisco UCS physical and virtual resources, service profiles, operating systems, and virtual machines (VMs).
  • Associate errors and incidents amongst Cisco UCS arrangement and both bare-metal and virtualized Operating Systems which you manage via SCOM.
  • Visually connect blades, service profiles, and host OSs via use of SCOM status views to rapidly idnetify the consequences of how a given event will impact the overall system.

Cisco UCS PowerTool Suite

The Cisco UCS Power Tool Suite contains of a set of Microsoft Windows Power Shell modules for Cisco UCS Manager, Cisco IMC, and Cisco UCS Central Software which assists you to configure and administer Cisco UCS domains and solutions. This command-line toolkit is founded on PowerShell and is utilized to systematize and assimilate Cisco UCS management with Microsoft servers and applications. The UCS PowerTool module for UCS Manager comprises in excess of 1,970 cmdlets.

By the use of Cisco UCS PowerTool in tandem with comparable management tools founded on PowerShell from 3rd-party vendors, you are able to manage and control all the components programmatically provisioning VMs, etc. You are now able to administer Server Message Block (SMB) file share, Hyper-V host clustered storage, and LUNs. Cisco UCS Director also provides support for the the following network models, which are defined and founded on the kinds of logical networks in SCVMM: VLAN-based, private VLAN-based, and network virtualization-based.

For more information about Cisco UCS and Microsoft solutions, visit www.cisco.com/go/microsoft or speak to our UCS Licensing Specialists here.

Streamline Systems Management via Cisco UCS Central – Part 1

Cisco UCS Central Software has been developed to provision huge scale, distributed server environments of up to 10,000 Cisco UCS B-Series, C-Series, S-Series servers and Cisco HyperFlex hyperconverged systems. Usually, when we raise the scale of anything, it also increases the complications. Cisco has been improving UCS Central with the target of making it far simpler to administer huge-scale, varied environments. The new 2.0 version of UCS Central carries on that development and makes it easier than ever before to win the profits for clients who are new to Cisco UCS as well as those that already are using Cisco UCS but have not yet taken the full benefit of all that UCS Central has to offer.

Cisco UCS is Much More Than a Universal Dashboard

If the goal is to deliver infrastructure lifecycle administration along with a universal method of screening system health and inventory, it takes much more than a good looking control panel or dashboard. Health and inventory functions are the only features you would have in any competing products; however, the Cisco UCS Central takes it to a completely new level. It gives universal configuration and lifecycle administration without having to separately spawn extra administration interfaces. Health and inventory status are simply displayed via customizable dashboards, reporting, an instinctive HTML 5 user control panel interface, along with unified fault reviews and records. You can also search amongst thousands of servers, policies, and other essentials rapidly and with much more ease.

Enabling Global Management Efficiency

The Cisco UCS service profiles and templates have enabled IT departments to become much more effectual and have been the core reason of significant OpEx savings. Cisco UCS Central provisions universal automation by enabling you to administer and configure all the servers sustained by the Cisco UCS Manager. The Cisco UCS universal service profiles and templates allow quick and streamlined infrastructure placements and make sure of reliability of configurations throughout the environs. They allow universal bare-metal workload flexibility in the same manner in which a hypervisor does for virtualized workloads.

You also get the following benefits with universal management:

  • Selectively pick which facets will be global versus local.
  • Use universal object administration and management to allow a single universal administrative structure.
  • Collect your UCS Domains logically (by site, datacenter, etc.) so that you can apply shared operative policies, like authentication configurations, DNS, NTP, backups, SNMP/Syslog, Call Home, and many more
  • Utilize VLAN / VSAN pseudonyms to abstract network particulars which can differ from site to site, so that universal policies are all seamless no matter where they have been deployed
  • Keep your firmware and drivers up to date with Hardware Compatibility Reports supported by a current HCL hosted on cisco.com.
  • Simplify infrastructure firmware upgrades for one or many domains according to policy, schedule, or ad hoc.

For more information about Cisco UCS, speak to our UCS Licensing Specialists here.