So, it’s no secret that almost any Cisco device can easily have the master password restored. It’s a disruptive process, but it’s well documented for each type of device (as it should be). Cisco UCS is no different. We document the procedure in two places (latest versions linked):
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So, you’ve probably heard about many of the cool features in our “Capitola” project (aka UCS Manager 2.0) that my colleague and good friend, Sean McGee, blogged about here: http://www.mseanmcgee.com/2011/07/ucs-2-0-cisco-stacks-the-deck-in-las-vegas/ . Sean covers many of the new hardware and software features in our 2.0 launch, and it is certainly worth the read. But what you may not know about are some of the small enhancements we make with each release that are handy when you find them and you think “hey, that wasn’t there before…”. I meant to do this article for the “Balboa” release (aka 1.4.x), but just failed to get it done in time. So, I thought now would be a good opportunity to cover both Balboa and Capitola in a single article. Keep in mind that the enhancements we do in each release, whether they be minor or major, are almost completely demand-driven. My team visits customers often and we try to get a better understanding of how they are using UCS and where it falls short in meeting their needs. We provide that feedback to our engineers, and they turn it into products and features. The direct customer interaction also allows us to share our upcoming ideas and concepts with customers before we build them to make sure we are hitting the mark. Continue reading
So, the year was 1996 and it was the first day of the semester in my programming class at Georgia State University (I was one of those who was able to squeeze a 4 year degree into just 10 years of college). I’m sitting there and this kid I have never seen before comes in and sits down beside me with what I thought was an unusual question…”Hey, what makes the most money in the computer field?” At the time, I knew the DB admins were pretty high on the pay scale so I answered with “Oracle guys make a lot”. He thanked me, promptly dropped that class and went to look for an Oracle class. I also remember him asking me how to spell “Oracle” which he still wrote down wrong. I had been in the workplace for a few years by then and I realized that if you’re in a job you hate, it doesn’t matter how much money you make. In fact, the higher your pay at a job you hate, the more imprisoned you feel. It’s a terrible way to live, if you can call it living. Continue reading
So, a long time back, I had a job as a network administrator for Ungermann-Bass networks (they were re-branding to the more flashy “UB Networks” at the time). We had a firewall in the office that ran on SUN Sparc and no one really knew anything about it other than that it was the DTTM architecture (Don’t Touch This Machine). It was my first exposure to UNIX and to software-based firewalls (not to mention the PBX system that ran on OS/2, but that’s a story for a different time). One thing I really liked about the firewall was that if we ever needed a port opened for a poorly documented application, we would simply run the desired app and the firewall would instantly tell us which ports were attempted. Sadly, not all firewalls are made equal and many times it’s not easy to find the port information you need. While Cisco has done a great job on our UCS documentation (see my previous post on how to provide feedback to the docs team), I thought it might be helpful for everyone if I included all the UCS port information into a single place for reference.
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So, today’s article will be a short one, but a useful one nonetheless. Here’s the scenario….You have 3 different sets of workloads on your blades that require 3 different levels of bandwidth. Because of this, you put them in different chassis’ to accommodate. Some of these chassis require 20G, some require 40G, and yet some require 80G. Just because they have varying bandwidth requirements should not mean that you cannot move a workload from say the 20G chassis to the 80G chassis if that happens to be where your excess server capacity lies at the moment. UCS is totally flexible with any bandwidth requirement you have (you might call it a ‘FlexNetwork’, but I won’t J). Unlike competing blade solutions available, UCS can deliver this varying bandwidth functionality while maintaining all the servers under a single UI in a single domain of management. If you are a user of HP Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager, this would be analogues to having all of your blades into a single “Domain Group”, but still have varying bandwidth requirements. But why stop at blades? Why not be able to manage “server” objects generically and allow rack and blade servers to be pooled together? We’ve got ya covered there too… Continue reading
So, my last blog post was on Server Management Software and included a survey as to which software you use and how you like it. Today, I’d like to share the results of that survey. If you didn’t take the original survey or if you’ve forgotten the questions, the focus of the survey was around the following 5 questions: Continue reading
So, if you haven’t noticed, we’re building a little momentum with Cisco UCS in the datacenter. In January, Gartner produced their annual Blade Server Magic Quadrant and placed Cisco in the “Visionary” box. I agree that UCS is visionary and we are definitely not a “me-too” entry into the blade server market (our ability to execute can be debated, but …). Later in the same month, SearchDataCenter.com predicted Cisco UCS to be one of the top data trends for 2011. It was nice to read some comments like “Cisco has the most to gain in this new market” and that they expect UCS to have a footprint in “nearly every datacenter around the world”. Then in February, John Chambers announced on the quarterly analysts call that UCS is enjoying a $650M annual run rate with an exploding 700% Y/Y growth rate. We are on target to top $1B in UCS revenue this year. OK, enough sidetrack. Now back to the point of this article…. Continue reading
So, I know that Cisco’s website is not the easiest to navigate. There are times that I get frustrated trying to find some document that I know I read recently and I just can’t locate it again. Thankfully, someone at Cisco on the UCS team decided to do something about it. Dan Debusschere maintains a site that you will want to bookmark – www.ciscoquicklinks.com. That’s what I love about this team – rarely do you hear a complaint without a simultaneous suggestion for improvement. I can some up the usefulness of the site by saying that at some point, you will find yourself needing one of these things: Continue reading
So, who reads documentation? All the RTFM remarks aside, I would say that 3 in 10 of us read the product documentation that companies put out. My son got a new airsoft AK47 for Christmas – a direct import from China and I have to say that in that case, 0 in 10 can understand the documentation. Although I am taking caution to not “super extra charge” the battery. Anyway, I hope you’ll agree with me that Cisco pumps out some great stuff in the area of documentation (although only 30% of you can tell me so). And in the past 18 months we have built up quite a library on Cisco UCS. If you’re looking for the landing page for it, you can start here: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/unified_computing/ucs/overview/guide/UCS_roadmap.html
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