First Published: April 30, 2018

Last Updated: October 10, 2018

Compatibility Matrix

Cisco UCS Director Express for Big Data

Cisco UCS Director Express for Big Data is a single-touch solution within Cisco UCS Director that automates deployment of Big Data infrastructure. Cisco UCS Director Express for Big Data provides a single management pane across physical infrastructure and across Hadoop and Splunk Enterprise software. It supports key Hadoop distributions, including Cloudera, MapR, and Hortonworks.

Cisco UCS Director Express for Big Data delivers end-to-end automation of Hadoop cluster deployment, allowing you to spin up and expand clusters on-demand. The physical infrastructure configuration is handled automatically, with minimal user input. The configuration includes compute, internal storage, network, and installation of operating system, Java packages, and Hadoop, along with the provisioning of Hadoop services. This is achieved through Cisco UCS service profiles wherein both the physical infrastructure and Hadoop configuration are incorporated into a Hadoop cluster deployment profile.

Cisco UCS Director Express for Big Data also delivers end-to-end automation of Splunk cluster deployment, with minimal user input. This is achieved through Cisco UCS service profiles wherein both the physical infrastructure and Splunk configuration are incorporated into a Splunk cluster deployment profile.

Requirements

This section contains the following:

Cisco UCS Director Express for Big Data

Cisco UCS Director Express for Big Data is a self-contained virtual machine that can be imported into, and run within a VMware vSphere environment. Cisco UCS Director Express for Big Data is packaged and delivered to the end-user in the Open Virtualization Format (OVF) for deployment on VMware vSphere. Depending on the hosting virtualization platform (For example, VMware vSphere), download and import the appropriate Cisco UCS Director Express for Big Data format.

The following table outlines the minimum system requirements for Cisco UCS Director Express for Big Data:

Resources

Minimum Requirements

vCPU

4

Memory

16 GB

Primary Disk (Hard Disk 1)

100 GB

Secondary Disk (Hard Disk 2)

100 GB

IOPS

1200

Bare Metal Agent

The Bare Metal Agent (BMA) is a separate virtual machine appliance that works with the Cisco UCS Director Express for Big Data appliance to provide more supporting services necessary in a PXE boot environment. These functions include services such as Dynamic Host Control Protocol (DHCP), Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), and Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP).

The following table outlines the minimum system requirements for BMA:

Resources

Minimum Requirements

vCPUs

2

Memory

3 GB

Hard Disk

40 GB

Cisco Server Support for Big Data Cluster Deployments

The table shows Cisco UCS Director Express for Big Data compatibility with Cisco UCS hardware and software. This table does not reflect the compatibility between Cisco UCS hardware and software.

For information regarding Cisco UCS compatibility, see the Cisco UCS Hardware and Software interoperability Matrices for the appropriate releases.


Note

All Cisco UCS Director Express for Big Data functionality may not be available across all supported Cisco UCS software versions. Certain features may not be available in older versions of Cisco UCS software.

Software Components

Certified Versions

Supported Versions
Cisco UCS Manager

Cisco UCS Infrastructure Bundle and Cisco UCS Manager Software Bundle, Release 3.2(3a)

Cisco UCS Infrastructure Bundle and Cisco UCS Manager Software Bundle, Releases:

  • 3.2(x)

  • 3.1(x)

  • 3.0(x)

  • 2.2(x)

Cisco UCS C-Series Rack-Mount Servers (Managed by Cisco UCS Manager)

Cisco UCS Infrastructure Bundle and Cisco UCS Manager Software Bundle, Release3.2(2d)

Cisco UCS Infrastructure Bundle and Cisco UCS Manager Software Bundle, Release 3.1(2b), Release 3.1(2f), and Release 3.2(2d) for M3 Rack servers

Cisco UCS Infrastructure Bundle and Cisco UCS Manager Software Bundle, Release 3.1(2b), Release 3.1(2f), and Release 3.2(2d) for M4 Rack servers and Storage servers

Cisco UCS Infrastructure Bundle and Cisco UCS Manager Software Bundle, Release 3.2(2d) for M5 Rack servers

Supported Cisco UCS C-Series Rack-Mount Servers

Following are the list of models supported by the Cisco UCS C-Series Rack-Mount Servers (managed by Cisco UCS Manager).

  • C240 M3 Rack Server

  • C240 M4 Rack Server

  • C240 M5 Rack Server

  • C220 M3 Rack Server

  • C220 M4 Rack Server

  • C220 M5 Rack Server

  • S3260 M4 Storage Server

Bare Metal Operating System Support

Cisco UCS Director Express for Big Data with the Bare Metal Agent supports the following operating systems in bare metal provisioning workflows:

Operating System

Certified Hadoop Distribution Version

RHEL 7.2

Cloudera 5.4.1, 5.5.0, 5.6.0, and 5.8.0

Hortonworks 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, and 2.5

MapR 3.1.1, 4.0.1, 4.0.2, 4.1.0, 5.0.0, 5.1.0, and 5.2.0

Note 

Cisco UCS C220 M5 and C240 M5 rack servers, Cisco UCS C220 M4 and C240 M4 rack servers, Cisco UCS C220 M3 and C240 M3 rack servers, and Cisco UCS S3260 M4 storage server are supported from RHEL 7.2.

RHEL 7.3

Cloudera 5.10.0, 5.11.1,5.14.0

Hortonworks 2.5.3, 2.6.4

MapR 5.2.0, 6.0.0

RHEL 7.4

Cloudera 5.10.0, 5.11.1,5.14.0

Hortonworks 2.5.3, 2.6.4

MapR 5.2.0, 6.0.0

RHEL 7.5

Cloudera 5.15

CentOS 7.3

Cloudera 5.10.0, 5.11.1,5.14.0

Hortonworks 2.5.3, 2.6.4

MapR 5.2.0, 6.0.0

Note 

Cisco UCS C220 M5 and C240 M5 rack servers, Cisco UCS C220 M4 and C240 M4 rack servers, Cisco UCS C220 M3 and C240 M3 rack servers, and Cisco UCS S3260 M4 storage server are supported from CentOS 7.3.

CentOS 7.4

Cloudera 5.10.0, 5.11.1,5.14.0

Hortonworks 2.5.3, 2.6.4

MapR 5.2.0, 6.0.0

Oracle Enterprise Linux OS 7.4

Cloudera 5.14.0

Hortonworks 2.6.4


Note

You can login to UCS Hardware and Software Compatibility tool to view and download the drivers. For more information, see Downloading Cisco UCS Storage and Network Drivers.

Downloading Cisco UCS Storage and Network Drivers

From Cisco UCS Director, Release 6.6.1.0, we are not packaging the Cisco UCS storage and network drivers along with Cisco UCS Director Express for Big Data. We recommend you to download the relevant drivers using the UCS Hardware and Software Compatibility tool.

Procedure

Step 1

Go to UCS Hardware and Software Compatibility tool.

https://ucshcltool.cloudapps.cisco.com/public/
Step 2

Click Search.

Step 3

Click the required radio button. For example, click the Server radio button to identify the compatible software for the Cisco UCS server.

Step 4

On the Search Options section, choose the required Server Type, Server Model, Processor Version, Operating System, and Operating System Version from the drop-down menus.

Step 5

On the Search Results section, refine the search results by checking or unchecking checkboxes next to Product Category (Adapters) and UCS Server Firmware version number

Step 6

Click Driver ISO under Details section.

Note 

By clicking the View Notes and Install & Upgrade Guides links under Documents, you can view the note details and install and upgrade details.

Step 7

Download a compatible Driver ISO file from the Software Download window.

Step 8

Extract the Storage ISO files.

Note 

To extract the ISO files, navigate to Storage > Intel > C600 > RHEL or Storage > LSI > C600 > RHEL and choose the required OS. For example,

  • For M.2 servers—Storage > Intel > C600 > RHEL > RHEL7.5 > megasr-18.0*.iso

  • For SAS HDD—Storage > LSI > UCSC-RAID-M5 > RHEL > RHEL7.5 > megaraid_sas-07.0*.iso. You need to extract the iso.gz file and rename the .iso file name with iso.gz file name.

Step 9

Extract the Network ISO file.

Note 

To extract the ISO files, navigate to Network > Cisco > VIC > RHEL and choose the required OS and copy the .rpm file. For example, Network > Cisco > VIC > RHEL > RHEL7.5
Step 10

Login to Bare Metal Agent through VM Console or SSH client to access the CLI.
Step 11

Create directories for the operating system in the /opt/cnsaroot/bd-sw-rep directory of the Bare Metal Agent VM.

mkdir /opt/cnsaroot/bd-sw-rep/ RHEL7.5_MEGASR_DRIVERS

mkdir /opt/cnsaroot/bd-sw-rep/ RHEL7.4_KMOD_ENIC_DRIVERS

mkdir /opt/cnsaroot/bd-sw-rep/ RHEL7.4_MEGASR_DRIVER

Note 

We recommend that you make the directory name descriptive enough that you can identify the operating system of the images within it. For example, we recommend that you name the directory RHEL7.5_MEGASR_DRIVERS.

The RHEL7.5_MEGASR_DRIVERS, RHEL7.5_KMOD_ENIC_DRIVERS, and RHEL7.5_MEGASR_DRIVERS directories are used to store the operating system image files.

Step 12

Execute ln -s <<path of the original iso file>> <<target link name>> to provide links to the ISO images. For example, ln -s /opt/cnsaroot/bd-sw-rep/RHEL7.4_MEGARAID_SAS/megaraid_sas-07.703.06.00_el7.4-1.x86_64.iso megaraid_sas_drivers_softlink_to_original.iso, ln -s /opt/cnsaroot/bd-sw-rep/RHEL7.4_MEGASR_DRIVERS/megasr-18.01.2017.1219-1-rhel74-x86_64.iso megasr_drivers_softlink_to_original.iso, and ln -s /opt/cnsaroot/bd-sw-rep/RHEL7.4_KMOD_ENIC_DRIVERS/kmod-enic-2.3.0.44-rhel7u4.el7.x86_64.rpm kmod_enic_drivers_softlink_to_original.rpm

Note 

The links to the RHEL7.5_KMOD_ENIC_DRIVERS should refer to the rpm file, and the MEGASR and MEGARAID should refer to the iso files.

Supported Hadoop Distributions

Cisco UCS Director Express for Big Data supports the following Hadoop distributions:

Hadoop Distribution

Supported Hadoop Distribution Version

Cloudera

5.4, 5.5, 5.6, 5.8, 5.10, 5.11, 5.13, 5.14, and 5.15

MapR

3.1, 4.0, 4.1, 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, and 6.0

Hortonworks

2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5.3, 2.6.3, and 2.6.4

Note

For more information on the supported JDK versions and upgrade scenarios, see Cloudera, MapR, and Hortonworks sites.

Supported Splunk Distribution

Cisco UCS Director Express for Big Data supports the following Splunk distribution:

Splunk Distribution

Supported Splunk Distribution Version

Splunk

6.3.2, 6.4.0, 6.5.2, 6.6.1, and 7


Note

For more information on the upgrade scenarios, see Splunk Enterprise site.

Supported External Database

MySQL, Oracle 12.1c, and Oracle 12.2c are the external databases supported in Cisco UCS Director Express for Big Data.


Note

Oracle 12.1c and Oracle 12.2c are supported in Cloudera and Hortonworks.