Chapter 1. Overview

Overview

Cisco UCS Central User Documentation Reference

Chapter 2. Ports and Port Channels

Server and Uplink Ports

Unified Ports

Unified Storage Ports

Unified Uplink Ports

Ports on the Cisco UCS 6300 Series Fabric Interconnects

Port Modes

Effect of Port Mode Changes on Data Traffic

Port Roles

Guidelines for Configuring Unified Ports

Cautions and Guidelines for Configuring Unified Uplink Ports and Unified Storage Ports

Configuring Unified Ports

Configuring Ports

Configuring an Appliance Port

Configuring an FCoE Storage Port

Configuring an FCoE Uplink Port

Configuring a Server Port

Configuring an Uplink Port

Configuring an FC Storage Port

Configuring an FC Uplink Port

Scalability and Breakout Ports

Managing Configured Ports

Creating a Port Channel

Creating or Editing an Ethernet Port Channel

Creating or Editing an FC Port Channel

Creating or Editing an FCoE Port Channel

Creating or Editing an Appliance Port Channel

Pin Groups

Creating a Pin Group

Fibre Channel Switching Mode

Configuring Fibre Channel Switching Mode

Viewing Port Configuration Status

Port Configuration Faults

Chapter 3. Global VSAN

Global VSANs

Creating or Editing a VSAN

Chapter 4. vHBA Management

vHBA Templates

vHBA Redundancy Template Pairs

Creating or Editing a vHBA Template

Host Interface Placement Policy

Creating or Editing a Host Interface Placement Policy

Chapter 5. Storage Pools

WWN Pools

Creating and Editing a WWN Pool

Deleting a Pool

Chapter 6. Storage Policies

Fibre Channel Adapter Policy

Creating or Editing a Fibre Channel Adapter Policy

ID Range Access Control Policy

Creating or Editing an ID Range Access Control Policy

SAN Connectivity Policy

Creating or Editing a SAN Connectivity Policy

Storage Connection Policy

Creating or Editing a Storage Connection Policy

Fibre Channel Zoning

Configuring Zoning

Direct-Attached Storage

Configuring Direct-Attached Storage

Chapter 7. Chassis Profiles and Templates

About the Cisco UCS C3260 Storage Server

Chassis Profiles

Guidelines and Recommendations for Chassis Profiles

Creating or Editing a Chassis Profile Template

Creating a Chassis Profile from a Template

Manually Assigning a Chassis to a Chassis Profile

Chassis Profile Template Details

Templates Table

Chassis Profile Details

Local Chassis Profiles

Profiles Table

Chassis Inventory

Storage Chassis View

Viewing Chassis Profile Configuration Status

Chassis Profile Faults

Chassis Profile Inventory Faults

Chassis Discovery Policy

Configuring a Chassis Discovery Policy

Chassis Maintenance Policy

Creating or Editing a Chassis Maintenance Policy

Chassis Firmware Package Policy

Creating or Editing a Chassis Firmware Package Policy

Disk Zoning Policies

Creating or Editing a Disk Zoning Policy

Viewing System IO Configuration Status

Chapter 8. Storage Profiles

Storage Profiles

Virtual Drives

Virtual Drive Naming

RAID Levels

Supported LUN Modifications

Unsupported LUN Modifications

LUN Dereferencing

Creating or Editing a Storage Profile

Disk Groups and Disk Group Configuration Policies

Creating or Editing a Disk Group Configuration Policy

Preface

Audience

Conventions

Related Cisco UCS Documentation

Documentation Feedback

Copyright Page

Chapter 1. Overview

- Overview

- Cisco UCS Central User Documentation Reference

Overview

This guide contains conceptual and procedural information on the following components that are intrinsic to Cisco UCS Central storage management:

- Ports and port channels

- SAN and VSAN

- vHBA

- Storage Pools

- Storage Policies

- Storage Profiles

Cisco UCS Central User Documentation Reference

The Cisco UCS Central following use case-based documents to understand and configure Cisco UCS Central:

Guide

Description

Cisco UCS Central Getting Started Guide

Provides a brief introduction to the Cisco UCS infrastructure, Cisco UCS Manager, and Cisco UCS Central. Includes an overview of the HTML5 UI, how to register Cisco UCS domains in Cisco UCS Central, and how to activate licenses.

Cisco UCS Central Administration Guide

Provides information on administrative tasks, such as user management, communication, firmware management, backup management, and Smart Call Home.

Cisco UCS Central Authentication Guide

Provides information on authentication tasks, such as passwords, users and roles, RBAC, TACACS+, RADIUS, LDAP, and SNMP.

Cisco UCS Central Server Management Guide

Provides information on server management, such as equipment policies, physical inventory, service profiles and templates, server pools, server boot, and server policies.

Cisco UCS Central Storage Management Guide

Provides information on storage management, such as ports and port channels, VSAN and vHBA management, storage pools, storage policies, storage profiles, disk groups, and disk group configuration.

Cisco UCS Central Network Management Guide

Provides information on network management, such as ports and port channels, VLAN and vNIC management, network pools, and network policies.

Cisco UCS Central Operations Guide

Best practices for setting up, configuring, and managing domain groups for small, medium and large deployments.

Cisco UCS Central Troubleshooting Guide

Provides help for common issues in Cisco UCS Central.

Chapter 2. Ports and Port Channels

- Server and Uplink Ports

- Unified Ports

- Ports on the Cisco UCS 6300 Series Fabric Interconnects

- Port Modes

- Port Roles

- Guidelines for Configuring Unified Ports

- Configuring Unified Ports

- Configuring Ports

- Scalability and Breakout Ports

- Managing Configured Ports

- Creating a Port Channel

- Pin Groups

- Fibre Channel Switching Mode

- Viewing Port Configuration Status

- Port Configuration Faults

Server and Uplink Ports

Each fabric interconnect can include the following port types:

Server Ports

Server ports handle data traffic between the fabric interconnect and the adapter cards on the servers.

You can only configure server ports on the fixed port module. Expansion modules do not include server ports.

Uplink Ethernet Ports

Uplink Ethernet ports handle Ethernet traffic between the fabric interconnect and the next layer of the network. All network-bound Ethernet traffic is pinned to one of these ports.

By default, Ethernet ports are unconfigured. However, you can configure them to function in the following ways:

- Uplink

- FCoE

- Appliance

You can configure uplink Ethernet ports on either the fixed module or an expansion module.

Uplink Fibre Channel Ports

Uplink Fibre Channel ports handle FCoE traffic between the fabric interconnect and the next layer of the storage area network. All network-bound FCoE traffic is pinned to one of these ports.

By default, Fibre Channel ports are uplink. However, you can configure them to function as Fibre Channel storage ports. This is useful in cases where Cisco UCS requires a connection to a Direct-Attached Storage (DAS) device.

You can only configure uplink Fibre Channel ports on an expansion module. The fixed module does not include uplink Fibre Channel ports.

Unified Ports

Unified ports can be configured to carry either Ethernet or Fibre Channel traffic. These ports are not reserved. A Cisco UCS domain cannot use these ports until you configure them.

All ports on the following fabric interconnects are unified:

- Cisco UCS 6248 UP Fabric Interconnect

- Cisco UCS 6296 UP Fabric Interconnect

- Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect

- Cisco UCS 6332-16UP Fabric Interconnect

Note

When you configure a port on a fabric interconnect, the administrative state is automatically set to enabled. If the port is connected to another device, this may cause traffic disruption. You can disable the port after configuring it.

- Unified Storage Ports

- Unified Uplink Ports

Unified Storage Ports

Unified storage is configuring the same physical port as an Ethernet storage interface and FCoE storage interface. You can configure any appliance port or FCoE storage port as a unified storage port on either a fixed module or an expansion module. To configure a unified storage port, the fabric interconnect must be in Fibre Channel switching mode.

In a unified storage port, you can enable/disable individual FCoE storage or appliance interfaces.

- In an unified storage port, if you do not specify a non default VLAN for the appliance port the fcoe-storage-native-vlan will be assigned as the native VLAN on the unified storage port. If the appliance port has a non default native VLAN specified as native VLAN, this will be assigned as the native VLAN for unified storage port.

- When you enable or disable the appliance interface, the corresponding physical port is enabled/disabled. So when you disable the appliance interface in a unified storage, even if the FCoE storage is enabled, it goes down with the physical port.

- When you enable or disable FCoE storage interface, the corresponding VFC is enabled or disabled. So when the FCoE storage interface is disabled in a unified storage port, the appliance interface will continue to function normally.

Unified Uplink Ports

When you configure an Ethernet uplink and an FCoE uplink on the same physical Ethernet port, it is called the unified uplink port. You can individually enable or disable either FCoE or Ethernet interfaces independently.

- Enabling or disabling the FCoE uplink results in corresponding VFC being enabled or disabled.

- Enabling or disabling an Ethernet uplink results in corresponding physical port being enabled or disabled.

If you disable an Ethernet uplink, it disables the underlying physical port in an unified uplink. So, even if the FCoE uplink is enabled, the FCoE uplink also goes down. But if you disable an FCoE uplink, only the VFC goes down. If the Ethernet uplink is enabled, it can still function properly in the unified uplink port.

Ports on the Cisco UCS 6300 Series Fabric Interconnects

The Cisco UCS 6300 Series Fabric Interconnect includes the Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect for UCS Mini (Cisco UCS Manager Release 3.0), and the Cisco UCS 6332 and 6332-16UP Fabric Interconnects (Cisco UCS Manager Release 3.1).

The following table summarizes the port usage for the Cisco UCS 6300 Series Fabric Interconnects:

Fabric Interconnect Name:

Cisco UCS 6324 (Cisco UCS Mini)

Cisco UCS 6332

Cisco UCS 6332-16UP

Description:

Fabric Interconnect with 4 unified ports and 1 scalability port

32–Port Fabric Interconnect

40–Port Fabric Interconnect

Number of fixed 40 GB Interfaces:

—

6 (ports 17-32)

6 (ports 35-40)

Number of 1GB/10GB Interfaces (depending on the SFP module installed)

All

Ports 5–26 using breakout cable

Ports 17–34 using breakout cable

Unified Ports (8 Gb/s, FC, FCoE)

4

None

Ports 1–16

Note

Cisco UCS 6300 Series Fabric Interconnects support breakout capability for ports. For more information on how the 40G ports can be converted into four 10G ports, see Scalability and Breakout Ports.

Port Modes

The port mode determines whether a unified port on the fabric interconnect is configured to carry Ethernet or Fibre Channel traffic. The fabric interconnect does not automatically discover the port mode. You configure the port mode in Cisco UCS Central.

Changing the port mode deletes the existing port configuration and replaces it by a new logical port. Any objects associated with that port configuration, such as VLANs and VSANS, are removed. There is no restriction on the number of times you can change the port mode for a unified port.

- Effect of Port Mode Changes on Data Traffic

Effect of Port Mode Changes on Data Traffic

Port mode changes can cause an interruption to the data traffic for the Cisco UCS domain. The length of the interruption and the traffic that is affected depend upon the configuration of the Cisco UCS domain and the module on which you made the port mode changes.

Tip

To minimize the traffic disruption during system changes, form a Fibre Channel uplink port-channel across the fixed and expansion modules.

Impact of Port Mode Changes on an Expansion Module

After you make port mode changes on an expansion module, the module reboots. All traffic through ports on the expansion module is interrupted for approximately one minute while the module reboots.

Impact of Port Mode Changes on the Fixed Module in a Cluster Configuration

A cluster configuration has two fabric interconnects. After you make port changes to the fixed module, the fabric interconnect reboots. The impact on the data traffic depends upon whether or not you have configured the server vNICs to failover to the other fabric interconnect when one fails.

If you change the port modes on the expansion module of one fabric interconnect and then wait for that to reboot before changing the port modes on the second fabric interconnect, the following occurs:

- With server vNIC failover, traffic fails over to the other fabric interconnect and no interruption occurs.

- Without server vNIC failover, all data traffic through the fabric interconnect on which you changed the port modes is interrupted for approximately eight minutes while the fabric interconnect reboots.

If you change the port modes on the fixed modules of both fabric interconnects simultaneously, all data traffic through the fabric interconnects are interrupted for approximately eight minutes while the fabric interconnects reboot.

Impact of Port Mode Changes on the Fixed Module in a Standalone Configuration

A standalone configuration has only one fabric interconnect. After you make port changes to the fixed module, the fabric interconnect reboots. All data traffic through the fabric interconnect is interrupted for approximately eight minutes while the fabric interconnect reboots.

Port Roles

The port role defines the type of traffic carried over a unified port connection.

All of the port roles listed are configurable on both the fixed and expansion module, including server ports, which are configurable on the 6200 and later series fabric interconnect expansion modules.

By default, unified ports changed to Ethernet port mode are set to the uplink Ethernet port role. Unified ports changed to Fibre Channel (FC) port mode are set to the FC uplink port role. You cannot unconfigure FC ports.

Changing the port role does not require a reboot.

When you set the port mode to Ethernet, you can configure the following port roles:

- Server ports

- Ethernet uplink ports

- FCoE storage ports

- FCoE uplink ports

- Appliance ports

When you set the port mode to FC, you can configure the following port roles:

- FC uplink ports

- FC storage ports

Guidelines for Configuring Unified Ports

Consider the following guidelines and restrictions when configuring unified ports:

Hardware and Software Requirements

Unified ports are not supported on 6100 series fabric interconnects.

Port Mode Placement

Because the Cisco UCS Central GUI interface uses a slider to configure the port mode for unified ports on a fixed or expansion module, it automatically enforces the following restrictions which limits how port modes can be assigned to unified ports. When using the Cisco UCS Central CLI interface, these restrictions are enforced when you commit the transaction to the system configuration. If the port mode configuration violates any of the following restrictions, the Cisco UCS Central CLI displays an error:

- Ethernet ports must be grouped together in a block. For each module (fixed or expansion), the Ethernet port block must start with the first port and end with an even numbered port.

- Fibre Channel ports must be grouped together in a block. For each module (fixed or expansion), the first port in the Fibre Channel port block must follow the last Ethernet port and extend to include the rest of the ports in the module. For configurations that include only Fibre Channel ports, the Fibre Channel block must start with the first port on the fixed or expansion module.

- Alternating Ethernet and Fibre Channel ports is not supported on a single module.

Example of a valid configuration— Might include unified ports 1–16 on the fixed module configured in Ethernet port mode and ports 17–32 in Fibre Channel port mode. On the expansion module you could configure ports 1–4 in Ethernet port mode and then configure ports 5–16 in Fibre Channel mode. The rule about alternating Ethernet and Fibre Channel port types is not violated because this port arrangement complies with the rules on each individual module.

Example of an invalid configuration— Might include a block of Fibre Channel ports starting with port 16. Because each block of ports has to start with an odd-numbered port, you would have to start the block with port 17.

Note

The total number of uplink Ethernet ports and uplink Ethernet port channel members that can be configured on each fabric interconnect is limited to 31. This limitation includes uplink Ethernet ports and uplink Ethernet port channel members configured on the expansion module.

The 40GB ports on the 6300 series fabric interconnects do not support expansion module configuration.

- Cautions and Guidelines for Configuring Unified Uplink Ports and Unified Storage Ports

Cautions and Guidelines for Configuring Unified Uplink Ports and Unified Storage Ports

The following are cautions and guidelines to follow while working with unified uplink ports and unified storage ports:

- You must configure a non default native VLAN on FCoE and unified uplink ports. This VLAN is not used for any traffic. Cisco UCS Central will reuse an existing fcoe-storage-native-vlan for this purpose. This fcoe-storage-native-vlan will be used as a native VLAN on FCoE and unified uplinks.

- In an unified uplink port, if you do not specify a non default VLAN for the Ethernet uplink port the fcoe-storage-native-vlan will be assigned as the native VLAN on the unified uplink port. If the Ethernet port has a non default native VLAN specified as native VLAN, this will be assigned as the native VLAN for unified uplink port.

- When you create or delete a member port under an Ethernet port channel, Cisco UCS Central automatically creates or deletes the member port under FCoE port channel. The same happens when you create or delete a member port in FCoE port channel.

- When you configure an Ethernet port as a standalone port, such as server port, Ethernet uplink, FCoE uplink or FCoE storage and make it as a member port for an Ethernet or FCOE port channel, Cisco UCS Central automatically makes this port as a member of both Ethernet and FCoE port channels.

- When you remove the membership for a member port from being a member of server uplink, Ethernet uplink, FCoE uplink or FCoE storage, Cisco UCS Central deletes the corresponding members ports from Ethernet port channel and FCoE port channel and creates a new standalone port.

- For unified uplink ports and unified storage ports, when you create two interfaces, only one license is checked out. As long as either interface is enabled, the license remains checked out. The license will be released only if both the interfaces are disabled for a unified uplink port or a unified storage port.

- Cisco UCS 6100 series fabric interconnect switch can only support 1VF or 1VF-PO facing same downstream NPV switch.

Configuring Unified Ports

Procedure

Step 1

Click the Browse Tables icon and choose Fabric Interconnects.

Step 2

Click on a Fabric Interconnect to open it for editing.

Step 3

Click the Tools icon and choose Unified Port Configuration.

Step 4

Use your mouse to drag the slider along the bar until the displays shows the port mode configuration that you want to use.
The ports are displayed as follows:

- Ethernet ports are displayed in green.

- FC ports are displayed in purple.

- Disabled ports are displayed in faded green or purple.

Note:
Depending on the server, the Ethernet and FC port slider may be reversed.

Step 5

Click Configure.
Note:
Configuring unified ports reboots the FI, and can cause an interruption to the data traffic for the Cisco UCS domain.

Configuring Ports

Note

Ports configured for Cisco UCS Manager releases prior to 3.1 were supported in Cisco UCS Central release 1.3, but are not supported in later releases of Cisco UCS Central. Any additional configuration of those ports must be done in Cisco UCS Manager.

Before You Begin

- You must be running Cisco UCS Manager release 3.1 or above.

- All Cisco UCS Manager domains must be included in a Cisco UCS Central domain group.

- Port Configuration must be set to Global on the Policy Resolution Control page in Cisco UCS Manager.

Procedure

Step 1

Click the Browse Tables icon and choose Fabric Interconnects.

Step 2

Click on a Fabric Interconnect to open it for editing.

Step 3

Click Ports.

Step 4

Choose the port that you want to configure.

Step 5

On the Ports page, click the Tools icon on the far right and select Configure Port.
The Configure Port page for the selected port displays.

Step 6

Select the Role for the port.
For Ethernet ports, this can be one of the following:

- Appliance—See Configuring an Appliance Port.

- FCoE Storage—See Configuring an FCoE Storage Port.

- FCoE Uplink—See Configuring an FCoE Uplink Port.

- Server—See Configuring a Server Port.

- Uplink—See Configuring an Uplink Port.

For FC ports, this can be one of the following:

- FC Storage—See Configuring an FC Storage Port.

- FC Uplink—See Configuring an FC Uplink Port.

Step 7

Complete the fields as required for your selection.

Step 8

Click Save.

- Configuring an Appliance Port

- Configuring an FCoE Storage Port

- Configuring an FCoE Uplink Port

- Configuring a Server Port

- Configuring an Uplink Port

- Configuring an FC Storage Port

- Configuring an FC Uplink Port

Configuring an Appliance Port

Appliance ports are used to connect fabric interconnects to directly attached NFS storage.

Note

If you are changing the configuration from an FCoE storage port to an appliance port, admin users have the option to make the port appliance only or unified storage.

Procedure

Step 1

Click the Browse Tables icon and choose Fabric Interconnects.

Step 2

Click on a Fabric Interconnect to open it for editing.

Step 3

Click Ports.

Step 4

Choose the port that you want to configure.

Step 5

On the Ports page, click the Tools icon on the far right and select Configure Port.
The Configure Port page for the selected port displays.

Step 6

In the Role drop-down, select Appliance.

Step 7

On the Basic tab, do the following:

1. Enter the Interface User Label.

2. Select the port speed.

3. Select the quality of service setting associated with this interface. This can be one of the following:

- Platinum—Use this priority for vNIC traffic only.

- Gold—Use this priority for vNIC traffic only.

- Silver—Use this priority for vNIC traffic only.

- Bronze—Use this priority for vNIC traffic only.

- Best Effort—Do not use this priority. It is reserved for the Basic Ethernet traffic lane.

- Fibre Channel—Use this priority for vHBA traffic only.

Step 8

On the Policies tab, select the flow control policy, pin group, and network control policy.
Note:
Only network control policies of type Appliance are supported and available for appliance port configuration.

Step 9

On the VLANs tab, choose whether the port will be a Truck or Access port, and select the VLANs that you want to assign to the ports.

- Trunk ports can have multiple VLANs and allow the VLANs to transport between switches over the trunk link.

- Access ports have one VLAN and is connected to an end point. If the VLAN is a primary VLAN, secondary VLANs are required.

The VLANs that you select are displayed in the VLANs from System column. VLANs that were created in Cisco UCS Manager are displayed in the VLANs Configured on Domain column.

Note:
Only VLANs of type Appliance are supported and available for appliance port configuration.

Step 10

On the Ethernet Target Endpoint tab, click Enabled to enter the Name and MAC Address for the endpoint.
The Ethernet target endpoint is disabled by default.

Step 11

Click Save.

Configuring an FCoE Storage Port

Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) Storage ports allow storage consolidation from two separate links to a single storage that carries both Fibre Channel (FC) and Ethernet traffic.

Note

If you are changing the configuration from an appliance port to an FCoE storage port, admin users have the option to make the port FCoE storage only or unified storage.

Before You Begin

The Fibre Channel switching mode must be set to Switching for these ports to be valid. The storage ports cannot function in end-host mode.

Procedure

Step 1

Click the Browse Tables icon and choose Fabric Interconnects.

Step 2

Click on a Fabric Interconnect to open it for editing.

Step 3

Click Ports.

Step 4

Choose the port that you want to configure.

Step 5

On the Ports page, click the Tools icon on the far right and select Configure Port.
The Configure Port page for the selected port displays.

Step 6

In the Role drop-down, select FCoE Storage.

Step 7

On the Basic tab, enter the Interface User Label.

Step 8

On the VSAN tab, select the VSANs that you want to assign to the ports.
The VSANs that you select are displayed in the VSAN column. VSANs that were created in Cisco UCS Manager are displayed in the VSAN on Domain column.

Note:
Only VSANs of type Storage are supported and available for FCoE storage port configuration.

Step 9

Click Save.

Configuring an FCoE Uplink Port

FCoE Uplink ports are physical Ethernet interfaces between the fabric interconnects and the upstream Ethernet switch, used for carrying FCoE traffic. With this support, the same physical Ethernet port can carry both Ethernet traffic and Fibre Channel traffic.

Note

If you are changing the configuration from an uplink port to an FCoE uplink port, admin users have the option to make the port FCoE uplink only or unified uplink.

Procedure

Step 1

Click the Browse Tables icon and choose Fabric Interconnects.

Step 2

Click on a Fabric Interconnect to open it for editing.

Step 3

Click Ports.

Step 4

Choose the port that you want to configure.

Step 5

On the Ports page, click the Tools icon on the far right and select Configure Port.
The Configure Port page for the selected port displays.

Step 6

In the Role drop-down, select FCoE Uplink.

Step 7

On the Basic tab, enter the Interface User Label.

Step 8

On the Policies tab, select the link profile policy that you want to assign to the port.

Step 9

Click Save.

Configuring a Server Port

Server Ports handle data traffic between the Fabric Interconnect and the adapter cards on the servers. Server ports are only configurable on the 6200 series and 6300 series fabric interconnect expansion modules.

Procedure

Step 1

Click the Browse Tables icon and choose Fabric Interconnects.

Step 2

Click on a Fabric Interconnect to open it for editing.

Step 3

Click Ports.

Step 4

Choose the port that you want to configure.

Step 5

On the Ports page, click the Tools icon on the far right and select Configure Port.
The Configure Port page for the selected port displays.

Step 6

In the Role drop-down, choose Server.

Step 7

In the Server field, enter the Interface User Label.

Step 8

Click Save.

Configuring an Uplink Port

Ethernet Uplink Ports connect to external LAN Switches. Network bound Ethernet traffic is pinned to one of these ports.

Note

If you are changing the configuration from an FCoE uplink port to an uplink port, admin users have the option to make the port uplink only or unified uplink.

Procedure

Step 1

Click the Browse Tables icon and choose Fabric Interconnects.

Step 2

Click on a Fabric Interconnect to open it for editing.

Step 3

Click Ports.

Step 4

Choose the port that you want to configure.

Step 5

On the Ports page, click the Tools icon on the far right and select Configure Port.
The Configure Port page for the selected port displays.

Step 6

In the Role drop-down, select Uplink.

Step 7

On the Basic tab, do the following:

1. Enter the Interface User Label.

2. Select the port speed.

Step 8

On the VLANs tab, select the VLANs that you want to assign to the ports.
The VLANs that you select are displayed in the VLANs from System column. VLANs that were created in Cisco UCS Manager are displayed in the VLANs Configured on Domain column.

Note:
Only VLANs of type LAN are supported and available for uplink port configuration.

Step 9

On the Policies tab, select the flow control policy and link profile.

Step 10

Click Save.

Configuring an FC Storage Port

FC Storage ports allow you to directly attach an FC storage device to a port on the FI.

Before You Begin

The Fibre Channel switching mode must be set to Switching for these ports to be valid. The storage ports cannot function in end-host mode.

Procedure

Step 1

Click the Browse Tables icon and choose Fabric Interconnects.

Step 2

Click on a Fabric Interconnect to open it for editing.

Step 3

Click Ports.

Step 4

Choose the port that you want to configure.

Step 5

On the Ports page, click the Tools icon on the far right and select Configure Port.
The Configure Port page for the selected port displays.

Step 6

In the Role drop-down, select FC Storage.

Step 7

On the Basic tab, enter the Interface User Label and select a fill pattern.

Step 8

On the VSAN tab, select the VSANs that you want to assign to the ports.
The VSANs that you select are displayed in the VSAN column. VSANs that were created in Cisco UCS Manager are displayed in the VSAN on Domain column.

Note:
Only VSANs of type Storage are supported and available for FC storage port configuration.

Step 9

Click Save.

Configuring an FC Uplink Port

FC uplink ports allow you to connect to external SAN switches.

Procedure

Step 1

Click the Browse Tables icon and choose Fabric Interconnects.

Step 2

Click on a Fabric Interconnect to open it for editing.

Step 3

Click Ports.

Step 4

Choose the port that you want to configure.

Step 5

On the Ports page, click the Tools icon on the far right and select Configure Port.
The Configure Port page for the selected port displays.

Step 6

In the Role drop-down, select FC Uplink.

Step 7

On the Basic tab, enter the Interface User Label and select a fill pattern.

Step 8

On the VSAN tab, select the VSANs that you want to assign to the ports.
The VSANs that you select are displayed in the VSAN from System column. VSANs that were created in Cisco UCS Manager are displayed in the VSAN Configured on Domain column.

Note:
Only VSANs of type SAN are supported and available for FC uplink port configuration.

Step 9

Click Save.

Scalability and Breakout Ports

The Cisco UCS 6300 Series Fabric Interconnects contain scalability ports that can be broken out into groups of 4 10-Gigabit Ethernet ports. The configuration requires a Small Form-Factor Pluggable adapter (SPF) that has one 40GB QSFP+ on one end to connect to the Fabric Interconnect, and four 10 GB ports to connect to different end points supporting 10 GB connectivity.

- The Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect contains one scalability port that can be used as a licensed server port for supported Cisco UCS rack servers, an appliance port, or a FCoE storage port.

- The Cisco UCS 6332 and Cisco UCS 6332-16 UP fabric interconnects contain multiple 40-Gigabet Ethernet ports that can be broken out into 10-Gigabit Ethernet ports.

Caution

Configuring breakout ports requires rebooting the Fabric Interconnect. Any existing configuration on a port is erased. It is recommended to break out all required ports in a single transaction.

Once you configure a breakout port, you can configure each 10 GB sub-port as server, uplink, FCoE uplink, FCoE storage or appliance port as required.

The following table summarizes the constraints for breakout functionality for the Cisco UCS 6332 and 6332-16UP fabric interconnects:

Fabric Interconnect

Breakout Configurable Ports

Normal Ports with no Breakout Support

UCS-FI-6332

1-12,15-26

13-14,27-32

Note:

- Auto-negotiate behavior is not supported on ports 27–32.

- A maximum of four ports are allowed as breakout ports if using QoS jumbo frames.

UCS-FI-6332-16UP

17-34

1-16,35-40

Note:

- Auto-negotiate behavior is not supported on ports 35-40.

- A maximum of four ports are allowed as breakout ports if using QoS jumbo frames.

Managing Configured Ports

Procedure

Step 1

Click the Browse Tables icon and choose Fabric Interconnects.

Step 2

Click on a Fabric Interconnect to open it for editing.

Step 3

Click Ports.

Step 4

Choose the port that you want to configure.

Step 5

Click the Port Tools icon on the far right.

Step 6

Select one of the following:

- Configuration Status—Displays the status of the port.

- Configure Port—Enables you to change the configuration of the port.

- Unconfigure Port—Deletes the port configuration information. If you unconfigure a port, all traffic using the port will stop.

- Enable Port—Sets the administrative state of the port to Enabled. Only visible when the port is Disabled.

- Disable Port—Sets the administrative state of the port to Disabled. Only visible when the port is Enabled.

- Unconfigure Breakout Port—Combines the four 10GbE ports into a single 40GbE port.

- Configure as Breakout Port—Turns the port into a scalability port that can be broken out into four 10GbE ports.

Step 7

Complete the fields as required.

Creating a Port Channel

Procedure

Step 1

Click the Browse Tables icon and choose Fabric Interconnects.

Step 2

Click on a Fabric Interconnect to open it for editing.

Step 3

In the Fabric Interconnect page, click the Tools icon and choose Create Port Channel.

Step 4

In Basic, select the type of port channel that you want to create.
This can be one of the following:

- Ethernet—See Creating or Editing an Ethernet Port Channel.

- FC—See Creating or Editing an FC Port Channel.

- FCoE—See Creating or Editing an FCoE Port Channel.

- Appliance—See Creating or Editing an Appliance Port Channel.

Step 5

Complete the fields as required for your selection.

Step 6

Click Save.

- Creating or Editing an Ethernet Port Channel

- Creating or Editing an FC Port Channel

- Creating or Editing an FCoE Port Channel

- Creating or Editing an Appliance Port Channel

Creating or Editing an Ethernet Port Channel

Procedure

Step 1

Click the Browse Tables icon and choose Fabric Interconnects.

Step 2

Click on a Fabric Interconnect to open it for editing.

Step 3

In the Fabric Interconnect page, click the Tools icon and choose Create Port Channel.

Step 4

In Basic, select Ethernet and complete the following:

1. Enter the Port ID, Name, and optional Description.

2. Select the admin speed and whether to enable auto negotiation.

Step 5

Click Policies and select the flow control and LACP policy that you want to assign to the ports.

Step 6

Click VLANs and select the VLANs that you want to assign to the ports.
The VLANs that you select are displayed in the VLANs from System column. VLANs that were created in Cisco UCS Manager are displayed in the VLANs Configured on Domain column.

Step 7

Click Ports and click the Add icon to add ports to the port channel.

Step 8

Click Save.

Creating or Editing an FC Port Channel

Note

For Cisco UCS Manager release 3.1(2) and above, FC port channels must be disabled before you can delete them.

Procedure

Step 1

Click the Browse Tables icon and choose Fabric Interconnects.

Step 2

Click on a Fabric Interconnect to open it for editing.

Step 3

In the Fabric Interconnect page, click the Tools icon and choose Create Port Channel.

Step 4

In Basic, select FC and complete the following:

1. Enter the Port ID, Name, and optional Description.

2. Select the Admin Speed for the port channel.

Step 5

Click VLAN and select the VLANs that you want to assign to the ports.
The VLANs that you select are displayed in the VLAN from System column. VLANs that were created in Cisco UCS Manager are displayed in the VLAN Configured on Domain column.

Step 6

Click Ports and click the Add icon to add ports to the port channel.

Step 7

Click Save.

Creating or Editing an FCoE Port Channel

Procedure

Step 1

Click the Browse Tables icon and choose Fabric Interconnects.

Step 2

Click on a Fabric Interconnect to open it for editing.

Step 3

In the Fabric Interconnect page, click the Tools icon and choose Create Port Channel.

Step 4

In Basic, select FCoE.

Step 5

Enter the Port Channel ID, Name, and optional Description.

Step 6

Click Policies and select the LACP policy that you want to assign to the ports.

Step 7

Click Ports and click the Plus icon to add ports to the port channel.

Step 8

Click Save.

Creating or Editing an Appliance Port Channel

Procedure

Step 1

Click the Browse Tables icon and choose Fabric Interconnects.

Step 2

Click on a Fabric Interconnect to open it for editing.

Step 3

In the Fabric Interconnect page, click the Tools icon and choose Create Port Channel.

Step 4

Basic, select Appliance and complete the following:

1. Enter the Port Channel ID, Name, and optional Description.

2. Select the admin speed and whether to use Static mode or dynamic LACP.

3. Select the quality of service Priority associated with this interface. This can be one of the following:

- Platinum—Use this priority for vNIC traffic only.

- Gold—Use this priority for vNIC traffic only.

- Silver—Use this priority for vNIC traffic only.

- Bronze—Use this priority for vNIC traffic only.

- Best Effort—Do not use this priority. It is reserved for the Basic Ethernet traffic lane.

- Fibre Channel—Use this priority for vHBA traffic only.

Step 5

Click Policies and select the flow control policy, network control policy, and the pin group that you want to assign to the ports.

Step 6

Click VLANs and select the VLANs that you want to assign to the ports.
The VLANs that you select are displayed in the VLANs from System column. VLANs that were created in Cisco UCS Manager are displayed in the VLANs Configured on Domain column.

Step 7

Click Ethernet Target Endpoint and click Enabled to enter the Name and MAC Address for the endpoint.
The Ethernet target endpoint is disabled by default.

Step 8

Click Ports and click the Add icon to add ports to the port channel.

Step 9

Click Save.

Pin Groups

LAN Pin Groups

Cisco UCS uses LAN pin groups to pin Ethernet traffic from a vNIC on a server to an uplink Ethernet port or port channel on the fabric interconnect. You can use this pinning to manage the distribution of traffic from the servers.

To configure pinning for a server, you must include the LAN pin group in a vNIC policy. The vNIC policy is then included in the service profile assigned to that server. All traffic from the vNIC travels through the I/O module to the specified uplink Ethernet port.

Note

If you do not assign a pin group to a server interface through a vNIC policy, Cisco UCS Central chooses an uplink Ethernet port or port channel for traffic from that server interface dynamically. This choice is not permanent. A different uplink Ethernet port or port channel may be used for traffic from that server interface after an interface flap or a server reboot.

If an uplink is part of a LAN pin group, the uplink is not necessarily reserved for only that LAN pin group. Other vNIC's policies that do not specify a LAN pin group can use the uplink as a dynamic uplink.

SAN Pin Groups

Cisco UCS uses SAN pin groups to pin Fibre Channel traffic from a vHBA on a server to an uplink Fibre Channel port on the fabric interconnect. You can use this pinning to manage the distribution of traffic from the servers.

Note

In Fibre Channel switch mode, SAN pin groups are irrelevant. Any existing SAN pin groups will be ignored.

To configure pinning for a server, you must include the SAN pin group in a vHBA policy. The vHBA policy is then included in the service profile assigned to that server. All traffic from the vHBA will travel through the I/O module to the specified uplink Fibre Channel port.

You can assign the same pin group to multiple vHBA policies. As a result, you do not need to manually pin the traffic for each vHBA.

Important:
Changing the target interface for an existing SAN pin group disrupts traffic for all vHBAs which use that pin group. The fabric interconnect performs a log in and log out for the Fibre Channel protocols to re-pin the traffic.

- Creating a Pin Group

Creating a Pin Group

You can create a pin group for either LAN or SAN.

Procedure

Step 1

Click the Browse Tables icon and choose Domains.

Step 2

Click the domain in which you want to create a pin group.

Step 3

On the domain page, click the Tools icon and select Create Pin Group.

Step 4

In the Create Pin Group dialog box, click Basic and choose whether you want to create a LAN or a SAN pin group.

Step 5

Enter the Name and optional Description.

Step 6

In Fabric A Target, choose whether you want to manually select a port, or select an existing port channel.

Step 7

If you selected Manual, select the port.
For LAN pin groups, only ethernet uplink ports are shown. For SAN pin groups, only FC and FCoE uplink ports are shown.

Step 8

If you selected Port Channel, select an existing port channel.
For LAN pin groups, only ethernet port channels are shown. For SAN pin groups, only FC and FCoE port channels are shown.

Step 9

In Fabric B Target, select a port or a port channel.

Step 10

Click Save.

Fibre Channel Switching Mode

The Fibre Channel switching mode determines how the fabric interconnect behaves as a switching device between the servers and storage devices. The fabric interconnect operates in either of the following Fibre Channel switching modes:

End-Host Mode

End-host mode allows the fabric interconnect to act as an end host to the connected fibre channel networks, representing all servers (hosts) connected to it through virtual host bus adapters (vHBAs). This behavior is achieved by pinning (either dynamically pinned or hard pinned) vHBAs to Fibre Channel uplink ports, which makes the Fibre Channel ports appear as server ports (N-ports) to the rest of the fabric. When in end-host mode, the fabric interconnect avoids loops by denying uplink ports from receiving traffic from one another.

End-host mode is synonymous with N Port Virtualization (NPV) mode. This mode is the default Fibre Channel Switching mode.

Note

When you enable end-host mode, if a vHBA is hard pinned to an uplink Fibre Channel port and this uplink port goes down, the system cannot repin the vHBA, and the vHBA remains down.

Switch Mode

Switch mode is the traditional Fibre Channel switching mode. Switch mode allows the fabric interconnect to connect directly to a storage device. Enabling Fibre Channel switch mode is useful in Pod models where there is no SAN (for example, a single Cisco UCS domain that is connected directly to storage), or where a SAN exists (with an upstream MDS).

Switch mode is not the default Fibre Channel switching mode.

Note

In Fibre Channel switch mode, SAN pin groups are irrelevant. Any existing SAN pin groups are ignored.

- Configuring Fibre Channel Switching Mode

Configuring Fibre Channel Switching Mode

You can configure your fabric interconnect to use either FC End-Host Mode or FC Switch Mode. By default, the FI is set to end-host mode.

Note

When you change the Fibre Channel switching mode, Cisco UCS Central logs you out and restarts the fabric interconnect. For a cluster configuration, Cisco UCS Central restarts both fabric interconnects sequentially. The second fabric interconnect can take several minutes to complete the change in Fibre Channel switching mode and become system ready.

Procedure

Step 1

Click the Browse Tables icon and choose Fabric Interconnects.

Step 2

Click on a Fabric Interconnect to open it for editing.

Step 3

On the fabric interconnect page, click the Tools icon and select the FC switching mode.
If you are using end-host mode, Set FC Switching Mode displays. If you are using FC switching mode, Set FC End-Host Mode displays.

Step 4

Click Yes on the warning page to change the configuration and restart the FI.

Viewing Port Configuration Status

Procedure

Step 1

Click the Browse Tables icon and choose Fabric Interconnects.

Step 2

Click on a Fabric Interconnect to open it for editing.

Step 3

Click the Tools icon on the far right and select Configuration Status.
The Configuration Status page for the selected port displays.

Step 4

Click Close to close the window.

Port Configuration Faults

The port faults page displays the following information for each fault:

- Code—The ID associated with the fault

- Timestamp—Date and time at which the fault occurred

- Cause—Cause of the fault

- Affected Object—The component that is affected by this fault

- Fault Details—The details of the fault.

- Severity—The severity of the fault

- Action—Any action required by the fault

Chapter 3. Global VSAN

- Global VSANs

Global VSANs

Cisco UCS Central enables you to define global VSAN in the SAN cloud or the Storage cloud. The global VSANs created in Cisco UCS Central are specific to the fabric interconnect where you create them. You can assign a VSAN to either Fabric A or Fabric B, or to both Fabric A and B. Global VSANs are not common VSANs in Cisco UCS Central.

Resolution of global VSANs takes place in Cisco UCS Central prior to deployment of global service profiles that reference them to Cisco UCS Manager. If a global service profile references a global VSAN, and that VSAN does not exist, deployment of the global service profile to Cisco UCS Manager will fail due to insufficient resources. All global VSANs created in Cisco UCS Central must be resolved before deploying that global service profile.

Global VSANs are available and can be used in Cisco UCS Manager, even if no global service profile with reference to a global VSAN is deployed in that UCS domain. A global VSAN is not deleted when a global service profile that references it is deleted.

Global VSANs that are referenced by a global service profile available to a Cisco UCS Manager instance remain available unless they are specifically deleted for use from the domain group. Global VSANs can be localized in Cisco UCS Manager, in which case they act as local VSANs. Unless a global VSAN is localized, it cannot be deleted from Cisco UCS Manager.

- Creating or Editing a VSAN

Creating or Editing a VSAN

You can create a VSAN with IDs from 1 to 4093, except for those in the following reserved ranges:

- If you plan to use FC switch mode in a Cisco UCS domain, do not configure VSANs with an ID in the range from 3040 to 4078.

- If you plan to use FC end-host mode in a Cisco UCS domain, do not configure VSANs with an ID in the range from 3840 to 4079.

Important:
FCoE VLANs in the SAN cloud and vLANs in the LAN cloud must have different IDs. Using the same ID for an FCoE vLAN in a VSAN and for a vLAN results in a critical fault and traffic disruption for all vNICs and uplink ports using that VLAN. Ethernet traffic is dropped on any VLAN which has an ID that overlaps with an FCoE vLAN ID.

You can create a VSAN at the domain group root or in a specific domain. You can also assign the VSAN to either fabric A or fabric B, or to both fabric A and B. When you assign the VSAN to both fabrics, both of them must have different VSAN ID and FCoE VLAN ID.

Procedure

Step 1

In the Actions bar, type Create VSAN and press Enter.

Step 2

In the VSAN dialog box, choose the type of VSAN that you want to create.
This can be one of the following:

- SAN—Connects your fabric interconnect to external switches.

- Storage—Directly connects your storage to the fabric interconnect.

Step 3

Click Domain Group Location and select the location in which you want to create this VSAN.

Step 4

Enter a Name.
The VSAN name is case sensitive.

Important:
Do not use the name default when you create a VSAN in Cisco UCS Central. If you want to create a global default VSAN, you may use globalDefault for the name.

Step 5

Choose whether to enable Fibre Channel zoning.
FC zoning can be one of the following:

- Enabled—Cisco UCS Manager will configure and control Fibre Channel zoning when the VSAN is deployed.

- Disabled—The upstream switch configures and controls the Fibre Channel zoning, or Fibre Channel zoning is not implemented on this VSAN.

Note:
Fibre Channel zoning is disabled by default.

Step 6

Select the Fabric where you want to assign this VSAN.
If you assign the VSAN to both fabrics, enter the VSAN ID and FCoE VLAN ID for both fabrics. If not, assign the IDs for the selected VSAN.

Step 7

Click Create.

Chapter 4. vHBA Management

- vHBA Templates

- Host Interface Placement Policy

vHBA Templates

Use vHBA templates to define how a vHBA on a server connects to the SAN. You can view all existing vHBA templates on the Templates page.

- vHBA Redundancy Template Pairs

- Creating or Editing a vHBA Template

vHBA Redundancy Template Pairs

Creating vHBA template pairs enables you to group vHBAs that belong to a specific server. For example, you can create a vHBA template and specify it as the primary template, then create a different vHBA template and specify it as the secondary template. You can link the two templates to create a pair that share attributes that you define in the primary template. The secondary template inherits the attributes from the primary template. If you select Updating Template, any changes made to the primary template are propagated to the secondary template in the template pair. You can also modify any non-shared configurations on each individual template in the pair.

When creating the pair, you can assign one template to each fabric. For example you could assign the primary template to fabric A, and the secondary template to fabric B. This eliminates the need to configure vHBA pairs independently using one or more templates. The number of vHBA pairs that can be created using a template pair is only limited by the adapter's maximum capabilities.

The following configurations are shared when using template pairs:

- VSANs

- Template Type

- Maximum Data Field Size

- QoS Policy

- Statistics Threshold Policy

The following configurations are not shared when using template pairs:

- Fabric ID

- WWPN Pool

- Description

- Pin Group Policy

Note

If you plan to use a global vHBA redundancy template pair in a local service profile in Cisco UCS Manager, you cannot assign the vHBA template for the primary and the secondary of the redundancy template pair at the same time. You will need to assign the vHBA template for the primary vHBA and set the peer name for the second vHBA, then modify the secondary vHBA and manually assign the secondary vHBA template.

Creating or Editing a vHBA Template

Note

Global vHBAs can be used in local service profiles created in Cisco UCS Manager.

Procedure

Step 1

In the Actions bar, type Create vHBA Template and press Enter.

Step 2

In the vHBA Template dialog box, click Basic and complete the following:

1. Choose the Organization where you want to create the vHBA template.

2. Enter a Name and Description.

3. Choose the Redundancy Type to enable vHBA pairing.
This can be one of the following:

- None—Creates a standard vHBA template without vHBA pairing.

- Primary—Creates the primary vHBA template.

- Secondary—Creates the secondary vHBA template.

4. Select the options for Type, Fabric ID, Fabric Failover and enter the the Max Data Field Size(Bytes).

Step 3

If you enabled vHBA pairing, click Peer Redundancy Template and choose the primary or secondary vHBA template.

Step 4

In Basic, select the Organization where you want to create the vHBA template.

1. Enter a Name and Description.

2. Select the options for Type, Fabric ID, and enter Max Data Field Size(Bytes).

Step 5

Click WWN Address Pool and select the WWN addresses.
If you do not assign a WWN address pool, the system assigns the default.

Step 6

Click VSAN and add the VSANs you want to use for this vHBA template.

Step 7

Click Policies and assign the policies that you want to use for this vHBA template.
If the policies are not assigned, click on each of the policies and pin group. On the right, click the drop-down to display related policies and pin group and select the one you want for this vHBA template.

Step 8

Click Create.

Host Interface Placement Policy

The host interface placement policy enables you to determine the user-specified virtual network interface connection (vCon) placement for vNICs and vHBAs.

To create a host interface placement policy, see Creating or Editing a Host Interface Placement Policy. Details for existing policies are displayed on the Host Interface Placement Policy page.

- Creating or Editing a Host Interface Placement Policy

Creating or Editing a Host Interface Placement Policy

Procedure

Step 1

In the Actions bar, type Create Host Interface Placement Policy and press Enter.

Step 2

In the Create Host Interface Placement Policy dialog box, click Organization and chose the organization in which you want to create the policy.

Step 3

Enter a Name and optional Description.
The policy name is case sensitive.

Step 4

Select the Virtual Slot Mapping Scheme.
This can be one of the following:

- Linear Ordered—The virtual slots are assigned in order.

- Round Robin—The virtual slots are assigned sequentially.

Step 5

Select the Virtual Slot Selection Preference for each virtual slot.
This can be one of the following:

- all—All configured vNICs and vHBAs can be assigned. This is the default.

- assigned-only—vNICs and vHBAs must be explicitly assigned.

- exclude-dynamic—Dynamic vNICs and vHBAs cannot be assigned.

- exclude-unassigned—Unassigned vNICs and vHBAs cannot be assigned.

- exclude-usnic—usNIC vNICs cannot be assigned.

Step 6

Click Create.

Chapter 5. Storage Pools

This chapter includes the following sections:

- WWN Pools

WWN Pools

A WWN pool is a collection of WWNs for use by the Fibre Channel vHBAs in a Cisco UCS domain. WWN pools created in Cisco UCS Central can be shared between Cisco UCS domains. You create separate pools for the following:

- WW node names assigned to the server

- WW port names assigned to the vHBA

- Both WW node names and WW port names

Important:
A WWN pool can include only WWNNs or WWPNs in the ranges from 20:00:00:00:00:00:00:00 to 20:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF or from 50:00:00:00:00:00:00:00 to 5F:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF. All other WWN ranges are reserved. To ensure the uniqueness of the Cisco UCS WWNNs and WWPNs in the SAN fabric, we recommend that you use the following WWN prefix for all blocks in a pool: 20:00:00:25:B5:XX:XX:XX

If you use WWN pools in service profiles, you do not have to manually configure the WWNs that will be used by the server associated with the service profile. In a system that implements multi-tenancy, you can use a WWN pool to control the WWNs used by each organization.

You assign WWNs to pools in blocks.

WWNN Pools

A WWNN pool is a WWN pool that contains only WW node names. If you include a pool of WWNNs in a service profile, the associated server is assigned a WWNN from that pool.

WWPN Pools

A WWPN pool is a WWN pool that contains only WW port names. If you include a pool of WWPNs in a service profile, the port on each vHBA of the associated server is assigned a WWPN from that pool.

WWxN Pools

A WWxN pool is a WWN pool that contains both WW node names and WW port names. You can specify how many ports per node are created with WWxN pools. The pool size for WWxN pools must be a multiple of ports-per-node + 1. For example, if there are 7 ports per node, the pool size must be a multiple of 8. If there are 63 ports per node, the pool size must be a multiple of 64.

- Creating and Editing a WWN Pool

- Deleting a Pool

Creating and Editing a WWN Pool

After creating a WWN pool you can edit by selecting the Edit icon on the overall summary page of the selected WWN pool. To select a WWN pool, go to All Pools page and select the WWN pool that you want to edit. The page redirects you to the overall summary page of the selected WWN pool.

Procedure

Step 1

In the Actions bar, type Create WWN Pool and press Enter.
This launches the Create WWN Pool dialog box.

Step 2

In Basic, complete the following:

1. Click Organization and select the location in which you want to create the pool.

2. Enter name and description of the WWN pool.

3. In the World Wide Name (WWN) Used For area, select one of the following:

- Port (WWPN)—The pool is used for both WWNNs and WWPNs.

- Node (WWNN)—The pool is used for WWNNs.

- Both (WWxN)—The pool is used for WWNNs.

Step 3

In WWN Blocks, complete the following:

1. Click the Create icon.

2. In the WWN Block Start column, enter the first WWN initiator in the block.

3. In the Size column, enter the total number of WWN initiators in the pool.

4. Click the Apply icon.
Additional fields related to WWN pools are displayed.

5. Click the WWNs tab, you can view a graphical representation of the number if WWN addresses in the pool, the number of assigned WWN addresses, and the duplicate MAC addresses and WWN summary.

6. In Access Control, select the ID range access control policy to apply to this block. If you do not have a policy, you can create one by typing Create ID Range Access Control Policy in the task bar.

Step 4

Click Create.
Note:
You must wait a minimum of 5 seconds before you create another pool.

What to Do Next

- Include the WWPN pool in a vHBA template.

- Include the WWNN pool in a service profile or service profile template.

- Include the WWxN pool in a service profile or service profile template.

Deleting a Pool

If you delete a pool, Cisco UCS Central does not reallocate any addresses from that pool that have been assigned to vNICs or vHBAs in Cisco UCS Manager. All assigned addresses from a deleted pool remain with the vNIC or vHBA to which they are assigned until one of the following occurs:

- The associated service profiles are deleted.

- The vNIC or vHBA to which the address is assigned is deleted.

- The vNIC or vHBA is assigned to a different pool.

Procedure

Step 1

Click the Browse Tables icon and choose Pools.

Step 2

In the Pool Name column, locate the pool that you want to delete.
You can search for the pool in one of the following ways:

- Browse through the list of pools.

- Click the Search icon and enter the pool name.

- Select a pool type from the Filters column.

Step 3

Click the pool.
This launches the overall summary page of the selected pool.

Step 4

Click the Delete icon.
If Cisco UCS Central displays a confirmation dialog box, click Delete.

Chapter 6. Storage Policies

This chapter includes the following sections:

- Fibre Channel Adapter Policy

- ID Range Access Control Policy

- SAN Connectivity Policy

- Storage Connection Policy

- Fibre Channel Zoning

- Direct-Attached Storage

Fibre Channel Adapter Policy

Fibre channel adapter policies govern the host-side behavior of the adapter, including how the adapter handles traffic. For example, you can use these policies to change default settings for the following:

- Queues

- Interrupt handling

- Performance enhancement

- RSS hash

- Failover in an cluster configuration with two fabric interconnects

Note

For Fibre Channel adapter policies, the values displayed by Cisco UCS Central may not match those displayed by applications such as QLogic SANsurfer. For example, the following values may result in possible mismatch between SANsurfer and Cisco UCS Central:

- Max LUNs Per Target—SANsurfer has a maximum of 256 LUNs and does not display more than that number. Cisco UCS Central supports a higher maximum number of LUNs.

- Link Down Timeout—In SANsurfer, you configure the timeout threshold for link down in seconds. In Cisco UCS Central, you configure this value in milliseconds. Therefore, a value of 5500 ms in Cisco UCS Central displays as 5 s in SANsurfer.

- Max Data Field Size—SANsurfer has allowed values of 512, 1024, and 2048. Cisco UCS Central allows you to set values of any size. Therefore, a value of 900 in Cisco UCS Central displays as 512 in SANsurfer.

Operating System Specific Adapter Policies

By default, Cisco UCS provides a set of Fibre channel adapter policies. These policies include the recommended settings for each supported server operating system. Operating systems are sensitive to the settings in these policies. Storage vendors typically require non-default adapter settings. You can find the details of these required settings on the support list provided by those vendors.

Note

We recommend that you use the values in these policies for the applicable operating system. Do not modify any of the values in the default policies unless directed to do so by Cisco Technical Support.

- Creating or Editing a Fibre Channel Adapter Policy

Creating or Editing a Fibre Channel Adapter Policy

Procedure

Step 1

In the Actions bar, type Create Fibre Channel Adapter Policy and press Enter.

Step 2

In the Fibre Channel Adapter Policy dialog box, click Basic and choose the Organization in which you want to create this policy.

Step 3

Enter a Name and optional Description
The policy name is case sensitive.

Step 4

In Resources, complete the fields as necessary.

Step 5

In Settings, complete the fields as necessary.

Step 6

Click Create.

ID Range Access Control Policy

Use the ID range access control policy to limit what pools can be utilized in a specific domain group. When you apply the access control policy to a pool, only the domain groups selected can access those pools.

- Creating or Editing an ID Range Access Control Policy

Creating or Editing an ID Range Access Control Policy

Procedure

Step 1

In the Actions bar, type Create ID Range Access Control Policy and press Enter.

Step 2

In the ID Range Access Control Policy dialog box, click Basic and choose the Organization in which you want to create the policy.

Step 3

Enter the Name and optional Description.
The name is case sensitive.

Step 4

In Domain Groups, click Add to select the Permitted Domain Groups associated with this policy.

Step 5

Click Create.

SAN Connectivity Policy

SAN connectivity policies determine the connections and the network communication resources between the server and the SAN on the network. These policies use pools to assign WWNs, and WWPNs to servers and to identify the vHBAs that the servers use to communicate with the network.

Note

These policies are included in service profiles and service profile templates, and can be used to configure multiple servers. So, using static IDs in connectivity policies is not recommended.

- Creating or Editing a SAN Connectivity Policy

Creating or Editing a SAN Connectivity Policy

Procedure

Step 1

In the Actions bar, type Create SAN Connectivity Policy and press Enter.

Step 2

In the SAN Connectivity Policy dialog box, click Basic and choose the Organization in which you want to create the policy.

Step 3

Enter the Name and optional Description.
The name is case sensitive.

Step 4

In Identifiers, choose the WWNN pool.
For more information, see Creating and Editing a WWN Pool.

Step 5

In vHBAs, create one or more vHBAs and select the properties. You can manually create the vHBA, use a vHBA template, or create a redundancy template pair. For more information, see Creating or Editing a vHBA Template.

Step 6

Click Create.

Storage Connection Policy

The storage connection policy contains a collection of target storage ports on storage array that you use to configure fibre channel zoning.

From Cisco UCS Central you can create a storage connection policy in an organization.

- Creating or Editing a Storage Connection Policy

Creating or Editing a Storage Connection Policy

Procedure

Step 1

In the Actions bar, type Create Storage Connection Policy and press Enter.

Step 2

In the Storage Connection Policy dialog box, click Basic and choose the Organization in which you want to create the policy.

1. Enter a Name and an optional Description for this policy.

2. Select a Zoning Type. This can be one of the following:

- None—FC zoning is not configured.

- Single Initiator Single Target—The system automatically creates one zone for each vHBA and storage port pair. Each zone has two members. We recommend that you configure this type of zoning unless you expect the number of zones to exceed the maximum supported.

This is the default.

- Single Initiator Multiple Targets—The system automatically creates one zone for each vHBA. We recommend that you configure this type of zoning if you expect the number of zones to reach or exceed the maximum supported.

Step 3

Click Endpoints and click the plus sign to add a WWPN.
The WWPN is assigned to the physical target port on the Fibre Channel or FCoE storage array that the server uses to access the LUNs configured on the storage array.

1. In the FC Target Endpoints > Basic tab, enter an optional description and select the fabric interconnect in the Path field.
By default, fabric interconnect A is used for communications with the target endpoint.

2. In the FC Target Endpoints > VSAN tab, select the VSAN associated with the FI port and target endpoint.

Step 4

Click Create.

Fibre Channel Zoning

Fibre Channel (FC) zoning allows you to partition the Fibre Channel fabric into one or more zones. Each zone defines the set of FC initiators and FC targets that can communicate with each other in a VSAN.

The access and data traffic control provided by zoning does the following:

- Enhances SAN network security

- Helps prevent data loss or corruption

- Reduces performance issues

Cisco UCS Central FC zoning combines direct attach storage with local zoning. Fibre Channel or FCoE storage is directly connected to the fabric interconnects, and zoning is performed in Cisco UCS Central, using Cisco UCS local zoning.

- Configuring Zoning

Configuring Zoning

Note

This dialog box is read-only if the global service profile or service profile template you select already has a SAN connectivity policy associated with it.

Procedure

Step 1

From the Service Profile or Service Profile Template page, click the Tools icon and choose Configuring Zoning.

Step 2

In the Configure Zoning dialog box, click the plus icon to add a new vHBA Initiator Group, and type the name that you want to use for the group.

Step 3

In Basic, enter the optional description.

Step 4

In vHBA Initiators, select the vHBA initiators that you want to add.

Step 5

In Storage Connection Policy, select the policy that you want to use.

Step 6

Click Save.

Direct-Attached Storage

Direct-attached storage (DAS) uses FC storage ports to connect an FC storage device to a port on the fabric interconnect.

- Configuring Direct-Attached Storage

Configuring Direct-Attached Storage

Procedure

Step 1

Ensure that the FI is configured in FC Switch Mode.

Step 2

Create a VSAN in the Storage cloud.

Step 3

Set the port role to FC Switch Mode.

Step 4

Perform the following steps to confirm that the storage port WWPN is logged into the fabric interconnect.

1. Log in through the secure shell (SSH), or establish a Telnet connection to the UCS Virtual IP (VIP) on the primary FI.

2. Enter the connect nxos { a | b } command, where a | b represents FI A or FI B.

3. Enter the show flogi database vsan vsan ID command, where vsan ID is the identifier for the VSAN.

Step 5

Create a storage connection policy.

Step 6

Create a service profile that uses the storage connection policy you just created.

Step 7

Associate the service profile with the server.

Chapter 7. Chassis Profiles and Templates

- About the Cisco UCS C3260 Storage Server

- Chassis Profiles

- Chassis Profile Template Details

- Chassis Profile Details

- Chassis Inventory

- Viewing Chassis Profile Configuration Status

- Chassis Discovery Policy

- Chassis Maintenance Policy

- Chassis Firmware Package Policy

- Disk Zoning Policies

- Viewing System IO Configuration Status

About the Cisco UCS C3260 Storage Server

The Cisco UCS C3260 Storage Server is a dense storage rack server with dual server nodes, optimized for large datasets used in environments such as big data, cloud, object storage, and content delivery. It belongs to the Cisco UCS C-Series rack-mount servers product family.

The Cisco UCS C3260 Storage Server is designed to operate in a standalone environment and as part of the Cisco Unified Computing System with Cisco UCS Manager integration. It assumes almost the same characteristics of its predecessors, the Cisco UCS C3160 Rack Server, but with the following additional features:

- System IO Controllers (SIOC).

- Support of up to two server modules.

- Capability to operate in a standalone mode.

- Chassis level functionality in the standalone mode—Shared components such as storage adapters, fans and power supply units are configured at the chassis level.

- Data Center Ethernet connectivity to a server host through a shared dual virtual interface card (VIC).

- Individual hard disk drives (HDD) can be assigned to either server in the dedicated or shared mode.

In addition, one of the server slots in the Cisco UCS C3260 Storage Server can be utilized by a storage expansion module for an additional four 3.5" drives. The server modules can also accommodate two solid state drives (SSD) for internal storage dedicated to that module. The chassis supports Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) expanders that can be configured to assign the 3.5" drives to individual server modules.

For more information, see the Cisco UCS 3260 Quick Reference Guide.

Chassis Profiles

A chassis profile defines the storage, firmware and maintenance characteristics of a chassis. You can create a chassis profile for the Cisco UCS C3260 Storage Server. When a chassis profile is associated to a chassis, Cisco UCS Central automatically configures the chassis to match the configuration specified in the chassis profile.

A chassis profile includes four types of information:

- Chassis definition—Defines the specific chassis to which the profile is assigned.

- Maintenance policy—Includes the maintenance policy to be applied to the profile.

- Firmware specifications—Defines the chassis firmware package that can be applied to a chassis through this profile.

- Disk zoning policy—Includes the zoning policy to be applied to the storage disks.

- Guidelines and Recommendations for Chassis Profiles

- Creating or Editing a Chassis Profile Template

- Creating a Chassis Profile from a Template

- Manually Assigning a Chassis to a Chassis Profile

Guidelines and Recommendations for Chassis Profiles

In addition to any guidelines or recommendations that are specific to the policies included in chassis profiles and chassis profile templates, such as the disk zoning policy, adhere to the following guidelines and recommendations that impact the ability to associate a chassis profile with a chassis:

- Each chassis can be associated with only one chassis profile. Similarly, each chassis profile can be associated with only one chassis at a time.

- Chassis profiles are supported only on the Cisco UCS C3260 Storage Server.

- C bundles earlier than Cisco UCS Manager Release 3.1(2) are not supported on the Cisco UCS C3260 Storage Server.

Creating or Editing a Chassis Profile Template

Procedure

Step 1

In the Actions bar, type Create Chassis Profile Template and press enter.

Step 2

In Basic, select the Organization where you want to create the chassis profile template.

1. Enter a Name and optional Description and User Label to help identify the chassis profile template.

2. Choose a Template Instantiation Mode:

- Initial—Chassis profiles created from this template inherit all the properties of the template, but will not be updated when this template is updated.

- Updating—Chassis profiles created from this template remain connected and are automatically updated when this template is updated.

Step 3

Click the Policies tab to assign existing policies to the chassis profile template.
You can click on a policy and use the drop-down option on the right to assign the policy to the template.

Step 4

Click Create.

Creating a Chassis Profile from a Template

Procedure

Step 1

In the Actions bar, type Create Chassis Profile from Template and press Enter.

Step 2

Choose the chassis profile template that you want to use from the Chassis Profile Template to Instantiate, and select the Organization where you want to create the chassis profile.

Step 3

Determine the type of Chassis Profile Naming Convention that you want to use. This can be one of the following:

- Manual Entry—Enter the chassis profile names as comma separated values. A chassis profile will be created for each value entered.

- Advanced—Enter the prefix, suffix, number of chassis profiles, the first number, and the number of digits.

The chassis profiles are created using the format prefixXXsuffix. For example, three chassis profiles starting at 400 and using 4 digits would be called prefix0400suffix, prefix0401suffix, and prefix0402suffix.

Note:
You can create up to 99 chassis profiles at one time from a single template.

Step 4

Click Create.

Manually Assigning a Chassis to a Chassis Profile

Procedure

Step 1

Click Browse Tables and choose Profiles.

Step 2

On the Profiles page, choose the chassis profile that you want to modify.

Step 3

On the Chassis Profile page, click the Tools icon and choose Assign Chassis Manually.

Step 4

Choose the chassis that you want to assign to the chassis profile.

Step 5

Click Assign.

Chassis Profile Template Details

The Chassis Profile Template details page displays detailed information on the chassis profile template. From here you can:

- View audit logs.

- Create a chassis profile from this chassis profile template.

- Delete, clone, or rename the chassis profile template.

- Templates Table

Templates Table

The Templates page allows you to view all templates in Cisco UCS Central. You can filter to view the following types of template:

- Chassis profile template

- Service profile template

- vHBA template

- vNIC template

From this page, you can:

- Add tags to one or more templates.

- Delete one or more templates.

- Click on a selected template to view the details page for that template.

Chassis Profile Details

The Chassis Profile details page displays detailed information on the chassis profile. From here you can:

- View logs and configuration status.

- Create a chassis profile template from this chassis profile.

- Bind or unbind from the chassis profile template.

- Assign or unassign a chassis.

- Reapply the configuration to the associated chassis.

- Delete, clone, or rename the chassis profile.

- Acknowledge and decommission a chassis.

- Turn on or turn off the Locator LED for a chassis.

- Launch Cisco UCS Manager for the specific Cisco UCS domain.

Note

- Your browser must have pop-ups enabled.

- For Cisco UCS Manager release 3.1(2) or later, this launches the HTML5 GUI. If the Cisco UCS Manager credentials match the credentials for your Cisco UCS Central login, then the system will automatically log in to the Cisco UCS Manager GUI without prompting for the login information.

- For Cisco UCS Manager release 3.1(1) or previous, this launches the Java-based GUI.

- Local Chassis Profiles

- Profiles Table

Local Chassis Profiles

The Local Chassis Profile details page displays detailed information on a local chassis profile. Local chassis profiles are managed by Cisco UCS Manager.

From here you can:

- View logs.

- Acknowledge and decommission a chassis.

- Turn on or turn off the Locator LED for a chassis.

- Launch Cisco UCS Manager for the specific Cisco UCS domain.

Note

- Your browser must have pop-ups enabled.

- For Cisco UCS Manager release 3.1(2) or later, this launches the HTML5 GUI. If the Cisco UCS Manager credentials match the credentials for your Cisco UCS Central login, then the system will automatically log in to the Cisco UCS Manager GUI without prompting for the login information.

- For Cisco UCS Manager release 3.1(1) or previous, this launches the Java-based GUI.

Profiles Table

The Profiles page allows you to view all service profiles or all chassis profiles in Cisco UCS Central. Select either Service Profiles or Chassis Profiles from the top of the page.

From this page, you can:

- Filter which service profiles or chassis profiles are displayed.

- Add tags to one or more service profiles or chassis profiles.

- Delete one or more service profiles or chassis profiles.

- Click on a selected service profile or chassis profile to view the details page for that profile.

Chassis Inventory

The Chassis page displays the following information related to the chassis associated with the registered Cisco UCS domain:

Chassis

Hardware

Configuration

Status

This column displays the following information for a chassis:

- The associated domain name and chassis ID

- Domain group location

- Fabric side

This column displays the following hardware information for a chassis:

- Model number of the chassis

- Serial number of the chassis

- Number of blades

This column displays the following configuration for a Chassis:

- Configuration status

- Configuration error count

This column displays the following status for a Chassis:

- Overall status

- Worst fault level

- Power status

- Thermal status

- Decommissioned chassis.

You can recommission the chassis by specifying a valid chassis ID.

- Storage Chassis View

Storage Chassis View

The Storage Chassis page allows you to manage and monitor all Cisco UCS C3260 Storage Servers in a Cisco UCS domain.

You can view the following information on the selected chassis and its components:

- Basic—Displays the overall status and an overview of all the components within the selected chassis, fault summary, configuration errors and hardware details.

- System IO Controllers—Displays overall status and detailed information about the shared adapter.

- Servers—Displays overall status, hardware, and firmware details of the server associated with this chassis. If you select a server, the page redirects to the server detail view page.

- SAS Expanders—Displays the overall status, configuration, and hardware for each SAS expander associated with this chassis.

- Storage Enclosures—Displays the overall status and configuration of the storage enclosures associated with this chassis by enclosure or by slot.

- Storage—Displays list of the storage in the selected server. Select a disk to view the current overall status, hardware, and controller details.

- Fans—Displays a list of fans in the chassis. Select a fan to view information related to its module, overall status and hardware details.

- PSUs—Displays a list of all the PSUs in the chassis. Select a PSU to view information related to its fault summary, overall status, and other property details.

You can also perform the following tasks:

- Acknowledge and decommission a chassis.

- Turn on or turn off the Locator LED for a chassis.

- Modify the discovery policy for the selected chassis.

- Launch Cisco UCS Manager for the specific Cisco UCS domain.

Note

- Your browser must have pop-ups enabled.

- For Cisco UCS Manager release 3.1(2) or later, this launches the HTML5 GUI. If the Cisco UCS Manager credentials match the credentials for your Cisco UCS Central login, then the system will automatically log in to the Cisco UCS Manager GUI without prompting for the login information.

- For Cisco UCS Manager release 3.1(1) or previous, this launches the Java-based GUI.

Viewing Chassis Profile Configuration Status

Procedure

Step 1

Click the Browse Tables icon and choose Profiles.

Step 2

Click Chassis Profiles.

Step 3

Select the chassis profile for which you want to view configuration status.

Step 4

On the detailed view for your selection, click the Alerts icon and choose Configuration Status.
The Configuration Status page displays.

Step 5

Click Close to close the window.

- Chassis Profile Faults

- Chassis Profile Inventory Faults

Chassis Profile Faults

To view consolidated faults of both the chassis profile and associated chassis, click the Alerts icon on the chassis profile page and choose Faults. The following information is displayed:

- Filters—Filter the data in the table by severity, fault type, and timestamp.

- Code—Unique identifier associated with the fault.

- Timestamp—Day and time at which the fault occurred.

- Cause—Brief description of what caused the fault.

- Affected Object—The name and location of the component that this issue affects, and the domain name where it is found.

- Fault Details—More information about the log message.

- Severity—Displays an icon denoting the fault severity. The icon key displays below the table.

- Action—Any action required by the fault.

Chassis Profile Inventory Faults

You can view faults from each chassis associated with a chassis profile. To view chassis faults, click the Faults icon in the Chassis Fault Summary section of a Chassis Profile details page. The Faults Logs page displays information on the type and severity level of the fault and allows you to monitor and acknowledge the faults.

- Filters—Filter the data in the table by severity, fault type, and timestamp.

- Code—Unique identifier associated with the fault.

- Timestamp—Day and time at which the fault occurred.

- Cause—Brief description of what caused the fault.

- Affected Object—The name and location of the component that this issue affects, and the domain name where it is found.

- Fault Details—More information about the log message.

- Severity—Displays an icon denoting the fault severity. The icon key displays below the table.

- Action—Whether user acknowledgment is required.

Chassis Discovery Policy

The chassis discovery policy determines whether a specific chassis is included in a fabric port channel after chassis discovery. This allows for different chassis connectivity modes per fabric interconnect. By default, the chassis discovery policy is set to global. This means that connectivity control is configured when the chassis is newly discovered, using the settings configured for Chassis/FEX Link Grouping Policy on the domain group system policy. Depending on the domain group equipment policy setting, the chassis links are either all set to port channel or single links.

When you set the chassis discovery policy manually for a chassis, you have the following options:

- None—All links functions as single links.

- Port Channel—All links functions as a port channel.

- Global—All links use the settings in the Equipment policy for the entire domain group.

For more information, see Managing Equipment Policies in the Cisco UCS Central Administration Guide.

Note

The chassis discovery policy is applicable only when the hardware configuration supports fabric port channels, and the chassis is directly connected to a fabric interconnect.

- Configuring a Chassis Discovery Policy

Configuring a Chassis Discovery Policy

Procedure

Step 1

Click the Browse Tables icon and choose Chassis.

Step 2

Click a chassis.

Step 3

On the chassis page, click the Tasks icon and choose Discovery Policy.

Step 4

Choose whether to use the global domain group policy, force all links to function as a port channel, or force all links to function as single links.

Step 5

Click Save.

Chassis Maintenance Policy

A chassis maintenance policy determines when a chassis is rebooted when changes are made to the chassis profile. By default, the chassis maintenance policy always requires that a user acknowledges the changes before the reboot occurs.

- Creating or Editing a Chassis Maintenance Policy

Creating or Editing a Chassis Maintenance Policy

All chassis maintenance policies require user acknowledgment before any maintenance-related configuration can be applied to the chassis.

Procedure

Step 1

In the Actions bar, type Create Maintenance Policy and press Enter.

Step 2

In the Maintenance Policy Create dialog box, choose Chassis.

Step 3

Choose the Organization where you want to create the policy, and enter the Name and optional Description.
The name is case sensitive.

Step 4

Click Evaluate to view the impact of the policy.

Step 5

Click Create.

Chassis Firmware Package Policy

The Chassis Firmware Package Policy page displays details about an individual chassis firmware package policy. From this page, you can edit the policy or view the chassis to which the policy is associated.

- Creating or Editing a Chassis Firmware Package Policy

Creating or Editing a Chassis Firmware Package Policy

Procedure

Step 1

In the Actions bar, type Create Chassis Firmware Package Policy and press Enter.

Step 2

In the Chassis Firmware Package Policy dialog box, click Basic and choose the Organization in which you want to create the policy.

Step 3

Enter a Name and optional Description.
The policy name is case-sensitive.

Step 4

Select the Chassis Version of the firmware, as required for your environment.
Note:
Only Cisco UCS Manager version 3.1(2) and above C bundles are supported.

Step 5

In the Components tab, click Add to select any components that want to exclude from the firmware update.
The included and excluded components display. The following components can be excluded:

- Chassis adapter

- Chassis board controller

- Chassis management controller

- Local disk

- SAS expander

- Storage controller

1. To exclude all components, click Excluded Components.

2. To remove an excluded component, select it and click Delete.

Step 6

Click Create.
Note:
To understand the impact of the policy, click Evaluate.

Disk Zoning Policies

Disk zoning policies allow you to manage the disks on your chassis servers when associated in a chassis profile. After a disk zoning policy has been created, you can view the disk zoning policy page to review what is included in the policy.

Depending on the storage controller, the disk types that are supported for your disk zoning policy may vary:

Storage Controller

Supported Disk Types

UCSC-C3X60-R1GB

Supports unassigned, dedicated, and chassis spare disks.

UCS-C3K-M4RAID

Supports unassigned, dedicated, and chassis spare disks on the UCSC-C3K-M4SRB server only.

UCSC-C3X60-HBA

Supports shared disks for data storage operations only. LUNs cannot be created on the shared disks.

- Creating or Editing a Disk Zoning Policy

Creating or Editing a Disk Zoning Policy

Procedure

Step 1

In the Actions bar, type Create Disk Zoning Policy and press Enter.

Step 2

In the Basic tab, enter the Name and optional Description.

Step 3

Choose whether to enable Preserve Configuration.
If enabled, any disk zoning that is configured on the chassis remains as is when the chassis is associated to a chassis profile. If disabled, enter your disk zoning preferences in the Disk Slots tab.

Step 4

In Disk Slots, assign the disks as follows:

- Unassigned—The disks are not visible to any server, and can be allocated as dedicated, shared, or chassis hot spare.

- Dedicated—Disks are assigned to the specified controller, and are not visible to any other controllers in the chassis.

- Shared—Disks are visible to multiple servers and controllers, and can be used for disk failover. Each disk slot must be assigned two controllers.

- Chassis Global Hot Spares—Disks will be made available to a controller if no hot spares on that controller are available.

Step 5

Click Create.

Viewing System IO Configuration Status

Procedure

Step 1

Click the Browse Tables icon and choose Chassis.

Step 2

Click a storage chassis.

Step 3

On the storage chassis page, click System IO Controller.

Step 4

Click a system IO controller to expand it.

Step 5

Click the Tools icon and choose Configuration Status.

Step 6

On the storage chassis page, click System IO Controller. On the System IO Controller dialog box, you can view the SIOC, the CMC, and the chassis discovery configuration status.

Step 7

Click Close.

Chapter 8. Storage Profiles

This chapter includes the following sections:

- Storage Profiles

- Disk Groups and Disk Group Configuration Policies

Storage Profiles

To allow flexibility in defining the number of storage disks, roles and usage of these disks, and other storage parameters, you can create and use storage profiles. A storage profile encapsulates the storage requirements for one or more service profiles. LUNs configured in a storage profile can be used as boot LUNs or data LUNs, and can be dedicated to a specific server. You can also specify a local LUN as a boot device.

Note

Storage profiles on Cisco UCS rack and blade servers are supported on Cisco UCS Manager release 2.2.7 and above, and Cisco UCS Manager release 3.1.1 and above.

Because Cisco UCS M-series Modular Servers have been deprecated, storage profiles with boot orders created in Cisco UCS Central release 1.4 are not supported in Cisco UCS Central release 1.5.

Storage profiles allow you to do the following:

- Configure multiple virtual drives and select the physical drives that are used by a virtual drive.

- Configure the storage capacity of a virtual drive.

- Configure the number, type and role of disks in a disk group.

- Associate a storage profile with a service profile.

Note

LUN resizing is not supported.

- Virtual Drives

- Virtual Drive Naming

- RAID Levels

- Supported LUN Modifications

- Unsupported LUN Modifications

- LUN Dereferencing

- Creating or Editing a Storage Profile

Virtual Drives

A disk group can be partitioned into virtual drives. Each virtual drive appears as an individual physical device to the Operating System.

All virtual drives in a disk group must be managed by using a single disk group policy.

Configuration States

Indicates the configuration states of a virtual drive. Virtual drives can have the following configuration states:

- Applying—Creation of the virtual drive is in progress.

- Applied—Creation of the virtual drive is complete, or virtual disk policy changes are configured and applied successfully.

- Failed to apply—Creation, deletion, or renaming of a virtual drive has failed due to errors in the underlying storage subsystem.

- Orphaned—The service profile that contained this virtual drive is deleted or the service profile is no longer associated with a storage profile.

- Not in use—The service profile that contained this virtual drive is in the disassociated state.

Deployment States

Indicates the actions that you are performing on virtual drives. Virtual drives can have the following deployment states:

- No action—No pending work items for the virtual drive.

- Creating—Creation of the virtual drive is in progress.

- Deleting—Deletion of the virtual drive is in progress.

- Modifying—Modification of the virtual drive is in progress.

- Apply-Failed—Creation or modification of the virtual drive has failed.

Operability States

Indicates the operating condition of a virtual drive. Virtual drives can have the following operability states:

- Optimal—The virtual drive operating condition is good. All configured drives are online.

- Degraded—The virtual drive operating condition is not optimal. One of the configured drives has failed or is offline.

- Cache-degraded—The virtual drive has been created with a write cache policy of Write Back Good BBU mode, but the BBU has failed, or there is no BBU.

Note

This state does not occur if you select Always Write Back mode.

- Partially degraded—The operating condition in a RAID 6 virtual drive is not optimal. One of the configured drives has failed or is offline. RAID 6 can tolerate up to two drive failures.

- Offline—The virtual drive is not available to the RAID controller. This is essentially a failed state.

- Unknown—The state of the virtual drive is not known.

Presence States

Indicates the presence of virtual drive components. Virtual drives have the following presence states:

- Equipped—The virtual drive is available.

- Mismatched—A virtual drive deployed state is different from its configured state.

- Missing—Virtual drive is missing.

Virtual Drive Naming

When you use Cisco UCS Central to create a virtual drive, Cisco UCS Central assigns a unique ID that can be used to reliably identify the virtual drive for further operations. Cisco UCS Central also provides the flexibility to provide a name to the virtual drive at the time of service profile association. Any virtual drive without a service profile or a server reference is marked as an orphan virtual drive.

In addition to a unique ID, a name is assigned to the drive. Names can be assigned in two ways:

- When configuring a virtual drive, you can explicitly assign a name that can be referenced in storage profiles.

- If you have not preprovisioned a name for the virtual drive, Cisco UCS Central generates a unique name for the virtual drive.

You can rename virtual drives that are not referenced by any service profile or server.

RAID Levels

The RAID level of a disk group describes how the data is organized on the disk group for the purpose of ensuring availability, redundancy of data, and I/O performance.

The following are features provided by RAID:

- Striping—Segmenting data across multiple physical devices. This improves performance by increasing throughput due to simultaneous device access.

- Mirroring—Writing the same data to multiple devices to accomplish data redundancy.

- Parity—Storing of redundant data on an additional device for the purpose of error correction in the event of device failure. Parity does not provide full redundancy, but it allows for error recovery in some scenarios.

- Spanning—Allows multiple drives to function like a larger one. For example, four 20 GB drives can be combined to appear as a single 80 GB drive.

The supported RAID levels include the following:

- RAID 0 Striped—Data is striped across all disks in the array, providing fast throughput. There is no data redundancy, and all data is lost if any disk fails. A minimum of one disk is required for RAID 0.

- RAID 1 Mirrored—Data is written to two disks, providing complete data redundancy if one disk fails. The maximum array size is equal to the available space on the smaller of the two drives. A minimum of two disks are required for RAID 1.

- RAID 5 Striped Parity—Data is striped across all disks in the array. Part of the capacity of each disk stores parity information that can be used to reconstruct data if a disk fails. RAID 5 provides good data throughput for applications with high read request rates.

RAID 5 distributes parity data blocks among the disks that are part of a RAID-5 group and requires a minimum of three disks.

- RAID 6 Striped Dual Parity—Data is striped across all disks in the array and two sets of parity data are used to provide protection against failure of up to two physical disks. In each row of data blocks, two sets of parity data are stored.

Other than addition of a second parity block, RAID 6 is identical to RAID 5 . A minimum of four disks are required for RAID 6.

- RAID 10 Mirrored and Striped—RAID 10 uses mirrored pairs of disks to provide complete data redundancy and high throughput rates through block-level striping. RAID 10 is mirroring without parity and block-level striping. A minimum of four disks are required for RAID 10.

- RAID 50 Striped Parity and Striped—Data is striped across multiple striped parity disk sets to provide high throughput and multiple disk failure tolerance. A minimum of six disks are required for RAID 50.

- RAID 60 Striped Dual Parity and Striped—Data is striped across multiple striped dual parity disk sets to provide high throughput and greater disk failure tolerance. A minimum of eight disks are required for RAID 60.

Supported LUN Modifications

Some modifications that are made to the LUN configuration when LUNs are already deployed on an associated server are supported.

The following are the types of modifications that can be performed:

- Creation of a new virtual drive.

- Deletion of an existing virtual drive, which is in the orphaned state.

- Non-disruptive changes to an existing virtual drive. These changes can be made on an existing virtual drive without loss of data, and without performance degradation:

- Policy changes. For example, changing the write cache policy.

- Modification of boot parameters

The removal of a LUN will cause a warning to be displayed. Ensure that you take action to avoid loss of data.

Unsupported LUN Modifications

Some modifications to existing LUNs are not possible without destroying the original virtual drive and creating a new one. All data is lost in these types of modification, and these modifications are not supported.

Disruptive modifications to an existing virtual drive are not supported. The following are unsupported disruptive changes:

- Any supported RAID level change that can be handled through reconstruction. For example, RAID0 to RAID1.

- Increasing the size of a virtual drive through reconstruction.

- Addition and removal of disks through reconstruction.

Destructive modifications are also not supported. The following are unsupported destructive modifications:

- RAID-level changes that do not support reconstruction. For example, RAID5 to RAID1.

- Shrinking the size of a virtual drive.

- RAID-level changes that support reconstruction, but where there are other virtual drives present on the same drive group.

- Disk removal when there is not enough space left on the disk group to accommodate the virtual drive.

- Explicit change in the set of disks used by the virtual drive.

LUN Dereferencing

A LUN is dereferenced when it is no longer used by any service profile. This can occur as part of the following scenarios:

- The LUN is no longer referenced from the storage profile

- The storage profile is no longer referenced from the service profile

- The server is disassociated from the service profile

- The server is decommissioned

When the LUN is no longer referenced, but the server is still associated, re-association occurs. When the service profile that contained the LUN is disassociated, the LUN state is changed to Not in Use. When the service profile that contained the LUN is deleted, the LUN state is changed to Orphaned. When decommissioning the server, the state of all the LUNs associated with the server is changed to Not in use or Orphaned. However, no action is taken to delete the actual LUNs.

Note

When LUNs are orphaned, the LUNs stay in the shared storage and the content is preserved. You can reclaim the orphan LUN to retrieve the data and attach the LUN to a new service profile.

Creating or Editing a Storage Profile

Procedure

Step 1

In the Actions bar, type Create Storage Profile and press Enter.

Step 2

In the Storage Profile dialog box, click Basic, then select the Organization in which you want to create the storage profile.

Step 3

Enter the Name and optional Description.
The name is case sensitive.

Step 4

Select the server type where you plan to apply the storage profile.

Step 5

In Local LUNs, click Add to add a new local LUN.

Step 6

Click Basic to add a new LUN, or Claim Mode to reclaim a previously orphaned LUN.
Creating a local LUN in Claim Mode will claim an orphaned LUN when the storage profile is applied to an associated service profile.

Step 7

In the Basic tab, do the following:

1. Enter the size in GB.
The size must be between 1 GB and 10240 GB.

2. Choose whether to enable automatic deployment for the local LUN.

3. Choose whether this LUN can be expanded to use the entire available disk group. For each service profile, only one LUN can use this option.

Step 8

In the Disk Group tab, select the Disk Group Configuration Policy that you want to apply.

Step 9

In Controller Defs, click Add.

Step 10

Enable configuration protection in order to prevent a service profile using this local disk policy from being associated to a server with a different physical disk configuration.
If the service profile includes a local disk policy with configuration protection enabled, and there is an attempt to associate that service profile to a server that includes disks with a different local disk configuration, the association will immediately fail with a configuration mismatch error.

Caution:
We recommend that you enable configuration protection to preserve any data that may exist on local disks. If disabled, any existing volume that does not match the local disk configuration policy will be deleted.

Step 11

Set the RAID level.
See RAID Levels for detailed information about the different levels.

Step 12

Click Create.

Disk Groups and Disk Group Configuration Policies

Servers in a chassis can use storage that is centralized in that chassis. You can select and configure the disks to be used for storage. A logical collection of these physical disks is called a disk group. Disk groups allow you to organize local disks. The storage controller controls the creation and configuration of disk groups.

A disk group configuration policy defines how a disk group is created and configured. The policy specifies the RAID level to be used for the disk group. It also specifies either a manual or an automatic selection of disks for the disk group, and roles for disks. You can use a disk group policy to manage multiple disk groups. However, a single disk group can be managed only by one disk group policy.

- Creating or Editing a Disk Group Configuration Policy

Creating or Editing a Disk Group Configuration Policy

Procedure

Step 1

In the Actions bar, type, Create Disk Group Configuration Policy and press Enter.

Step 2

In the Disk Group Configuration Policy dialog box, click Basic and choose the Organization in which you want to create the disk group configuration policy.

Step 3

Enter the Name and optional Description.
The name is case sensitive.

Step 4

Select the Raid Level.
This can be one of the following:

- Platform Default

- Simple

- RAID

- RAID 0 Striped

- RAID 1 Mirrored

- RAID 5 Striped Parity

- RAID 6 Striped Dual Parity

- RAID 10 Mirrored & Striped

- RAID 50 Striped Parity & Striped

- RAID 60 Striped Dual Parity & Striped

Step 5

In Disk Group, choose one of the following:

- Auto—Choose the Drive Type, type values for the drive information, and choose whether to use the remaining disks.

- Manual—Add a disk slot ID, and select the Span and disk role for the slots.

Step 6

In Virtual Drive icon, complete the fields as necessary.

Step 7

Click Create.

Preface

- Audience

- Conventions

- Related Cisco UCS Documentation

- Documentation Feedback

Audience

This guide is intended primarily for data center administrators with responsibilities and expertise in one or more of the following:

- Server administration

- Storage administration

- Network administration

- Network security

Conventions

Text Type

Indication

GUI elements

GUI elements such as tab titles, area names, and field labels appear in this font.

Main titles such as window, dialog box, and wizard titles appear in this font.

Document titles

Document titles appear in this font.

TUI elements

In a Text-based User Interface, text the system displays appears in this font.

System output

Terminal sessions and information that the system displays appear in this font.

CLI commands

CLI command keywords appear in this font.

Variables in a CLI command appear in this font.

[ ]

Elements in square brackets are optional.

{x | y | z}

Required alternative keywords are grouped in braces and separated by vertical bars.

[x | y | z]

Optional alternative keywords are grouped in brackets and separated by vertical bars.

string

A nonquoted set of characters. Do not use quotation marks around the string or the string will include the quotation marks.

< >

Nonprinting characters such as passwords are in angle brackets.

[ ]

Default responses to system prompts are in square brackets.

!, #

An exclamation point (!) or a pound sign (#) at the beginning of a line of code indicates a comment line.

Note

Means reader take note. Notes contain helpful suggestions or references to material not covered in the document.

Tip

Means the following information will help you solve a problem. The tips information might not be troubleshooting or even an action, but could be useful information, similar to a Timesaver.

Timesaver

Means the described action saves time. You can save time by performing the action described in the paragraph.

Caution

Means reader be careful. In this situation, you might perform an action that could result in equipment damage or loss of data.

Warning

IMPORTANT SAFETY INSTRUCTIONS

This warning symbol means danger. You are in a situation that could cause bodily injury. Before you work on any equipment, be aware of the hazards involved with electrical circuitry and be familiar with standard practices for preventing accidents. Use the statement number provided at the end of each warning to locate its translation in the translated safety warnings that accompanied this device.

SAVE THESE INSTRUCTIONS

Related Cisco UCS Documentation

Documentation Roadmaps

For a complete list of all B-Series documentation, see the Cisco UCS B-Series Servers Documentation Roadmap available at the following URL: Click Here .

For a complete list of all C-Series documentation, see the Cisco UCS C-Series Servers Documentation Roadmap available at the following URL: Click Here .

For information on supported firmware versions and supported UCS Manager versions for the rack servers that are integrated with the UCS Manager for management, refer to Release Bundle Contents for Cisco UCS Software.

Other Documentation Resources

Follow Cisco UCS Docs on Twitter to receive document update notifications.

Documentation Feedback

To provide technical feedback on this document, or to report an error or omission, please send your comments to ucs-docfeedback@cisco.com. We appreciate your feedback.

THE SPECIFICATIONS AND INFORMATION REGARDING THE PRODUCTS IN THIS MANUAL ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE. ALL STATEMENTS, INFORMATION, AND RECOMMENDATIONS IN THIS MANUAL ARE BELIEVED TO BE ACCURATE BUT ARE PRESENTED WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. USERS MUST TAKE FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR APPLICATION OF ANY PRODUCTS.

THE SOFTWARE LICENSE AND LIMITED WARRANTY FOR THE ACCOMPANYING PRODUCT ARE SET FORTH IN THE INFORMATION PACKET THAT SHIPPED WITH THE PRODUCT AND ARE INCORPORATED HEREIN BY THIS REFERENCE. IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO LOCATE THE SOFTWARE LICENSE OR LIMITED WARRANTY, CONTACT YOUR CISCO REPRESENTATIVE FOR A COPY.

The Cisco implementation of TCP header compression is an adaptation of a program developed by the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) as part of UCB's public domain version of the UNIX operating system. All rights reserved. Copyright © 1981, Regents of the University of California.

NOTWITHSTANDING ANY OTHER WARRANTY HEREIN, ALL DOCUMENT FILES AND SOFTWARE OF THESE SUPPLIERS ARE PROVIDED “AS IS" WITH ALL FAULTS. CISCO AND THE ABOVE-NAMED SUPPLIERS DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THOSE OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT OR ARISING FROM A COURSE OF DEALING, USAGE, OR TRADE PRACTICE.

IN NO EVENT SHALL CISCO OR ITS SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, LOST PROFITS OR LOSS OR DAMAGE TO DATA ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THIS MANUAL, EVEN IF CISCO OR ITS SUPPLIERS HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

Any Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and phone numbers used in this document are not intended to be actual addresses and phone numbers. Any examples, command display output, network topology diagrams, and other figures included in the document are shown for illustrative purposes only. Any use of actual IP addresses or phone numbers in illustrative content is unintentional and coincidental.

Cisco and the Cisco logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. To view a list of Cisco trademarks, go to this URL: Click Here . Third-party trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company. (1110R)