Using the Cisco UCS Provider for Proactive High Availability (HA)

This chapter includes the following sections:

Cisco UCS Provider for Proactive HA

Cisco UCS Provider for Proactive HA feature allows the system to assess the health of the server running the ESXi host. It assess if the server is healthy, moderately or severely degraded. Any fault which occurs from the Cisco approved predefined list of faults with critical or major severity is reported to the vCenter. For more information on Proactive HA feature and providers, see VMware documentation.

Prerequisites and User Privileges

To use Cisco UCS Provider for the Proactive HA, we recommend that you enable the following:

  • vSphere DRS

  • Proactive HA

You must have the following privileges to use Cisco UCS Provider for the Proactive HA:

  • Health Update Provider

    • Register

    • Unregister

    • Update

  • Host

    • Inventory

      • Modify Cluster

    • Configuration

      • Quarantine

      • Maintenance

  • Storage Views

    • View

Registering a Cisco UCS Provider

Procedure

Step 1

Launch the vSphere Web Client.

Step 2

From the Home page, launch Cisco UCS plug-in.

Step 3

Click Proactive HA Registration tab.

Step 4

In the Register Cisco UCS Provider area, enter the following:

Name

Description

Username

Enter the vCenter username

Password

Enter the vCenter password
Note 

If you want to update the vCenter credentials for Cisco UCS Provider, then enter a new password and click Update.

Step 5

Click Register.

The Cisco UCS Provider is visible when the domains which manage all the hosts in the cluster are registered.

Important 

To upgrade the registered Cisco UCS Manager plug-in, unregister the Cisco UCS Provider for Proactive HA, upgrade the registered plug-in and register the Cisco UCS Provider for Proactive HA. For more information on how to unregister the Cisco UCS Provider, and upgrade the plug-in, seeUnregistering a Cisco UCS Provider and Upgrading Cisco UCS Manager Plug-In for vSphere Web Client.

Enabling Cisco UCS Provider

Before you begin

  • Enable vSphere DRS

  • From the vSphere Availability, enable Proactive HA

  • Register all the UCS domains which manage all the hosts in the cluster. To register the domains, see Registering the UCS Domains

Procedure

Step 1

Click Hosts and Clusters > Cluster > Configure > vSphere Availability > Edit > Proactive HA Failures and Responses.

Step 2

On the Proactive HA Failures and Responses tab, complete the following:

Name

Description

Automation Level drop-down list

Whether to migrate the VMs automatically or manually in case of hosts failure.

This can be one of the following:

  • Manual

  • Automated

We recommend that you select Automated level.

Remediation drop-down list

The action to be taken depending on the severity of the failure,

This can be one of the following:

  • Quarantine mode for all failures

  • Quarantine mode for moderate and Maintenance Mode for sever failures (Mixed)

  • Maintenance mode for all failures

We recommend that you select Mixed mode.

Step 3

From the list, check the Cisco UCS Provider check box, and click OK.

Unregistering a Cisco UCS Provider

Procedure

Step 1

Launch the vSphere Web Client.

Step 2

From the home page, launch Cisco UCS plug-in.

Step 3

Click Proactive HA Registration tab.

Step 4

Click Unregister.

Modifying Cisco UCS Failure Conditions

Before you begin

  • Enable vSphere DRS

  • From the vSphere Availability, enable Proactive HA

  • Register all the UCS domains which manage all the hosts in the cluster. To register the domains, see Registering the UCS Domains

Procedure

Step 1

Click Hosts and Clusters > Cluster > Configure > vSphere Availability > Edit > Proactive HA Failures and Responses.

Step 2

From the list of providers, check the Cisco UCS Provider check box, and click Edit.

A list of Cisco UCS Provider failure conditions appears.
Step 3

To block a failure condition on a host in the cluster, check the failure condition and the associated host check box.

Step 4

To select all current and future hosts in the cluster, check the Cluster-level check box.

Step 5

Click OK.