Examples include features in the User Authentication settings, such as call home, user management, time zone, and DNS, NTP, backups, . In Cisco UCS Central, operational policies are applied in the context of a domain group (or subdomain group) and all of its associated domains.

Domain groups and operational policies typically govern site-specific aspects, such as those that would be affected by to physical location, geography, or other factors.

Take advantage of the domain group hierarchy to minimize the number of operational policies that you define. You can segment operational policies into those that are nondisruptive and those that are potentially disruptive.

Best practices dictate that administrators place as many nondisruptive policies as high up in the domain group hierarchy as possible. Similarly, place any potentially disruptive operational policies as low in the domain group hierarchy as possible.

When adopting service profile policies and global service profiles, qualify them based on requirements and constraints. For example, migrating local service profiles to global service profiles is straightforward if there is no need to maintain the same IDs. It is complicated if IDs must remain the same. Remember that you can view local service profiles from Cisco UCS Central, even if you cannot configure them.

Workload policies are typically associated with service profile, such as boot policy, VNIC/VHBA templates, network QoS, and BIOS policy. In Cisco UCS Central, apply workload policies in an organization and all of its associated child organizations.

Organizations and workload policies typically govern service profiles and their associated templates, pools, and policies.

When adopting Cisco UCS Central for Cisco UCS domains, take note of current caveats and limitations. The most notable limitation: While local service profiles can refer to global pools and policies, you cannot convert local service profiles to global service profiles. Therefore, leave the existing service profile in a locally managed mode. The only way to re-create the settings is to reconstruct them in a global service profile.

Only adopt service profile policies and global service profiles if they contribute to management simplicity. If their adoption complicates management, avoid adopting them.

There is no dependency between operational policies and service profile policies. There is no requirement in Cisco UCS Central that forces you to adopt global service profile policies as well as global service profiles.

Cisco UCS Manager domains are not aware that they are contained in a domain group. Therefore, they do not share operational structure created within Cisco UCS Central. However, the organizational structure remains consistent and mutually shared between Cisco UCS Manager and Cisco UCS Central with a global scope.

Cisco UCS Central provides global operational policies for one or more Cisco UCS domains. All participation in global policies is on an opt-in basis for Cisco UCS Manager domains. Cisco UCS Central does not take control of global policies unless such control is first delegated from the local Cisco UCS Manager domain administrator. A local Cisco UCS Manager domain administrator can revoke control by opting out of global management for any policy.

All administrative policies are under local domain control, by default, until the following occurs:

1. The local domain is registered to Cisco UCS Central.

2. The local domain is moved from ungrouped domains to a domain group in Cisco UCS Central.

3. The local domain administrator explicitly promotes a given policy from local to global resolution.

There is no dependency between the various policy promotion decisions. For example, you can globalize fault policies while still managing infrastructure and catalog firmware locally. In Cisco UCS Manager Admin > Communication Management > Cisco UCS Central, all of the policies listed within the policy resolution control are independent.

Once a policy is promoted from local to global, you can only change the effective policy definition at the Cisco UCS Central level. This is by design, to enforce the desired consistency across domains. However, administrators can return to locally resolved policies at any time. If an administrator reverts to local management for a policy, that policy setting remains until the local administrator changes it. Then Cisco UCS Central no longer controls that policy.