Cisco UCS Central Overview

This chapter includes the following sections:

Introducing Cisco UCS Central

Cisco UCS Central provides scalable management solution for growing Cisco UCS environment. Cisco UCS Central simplifies the management of multiple Cisco UCS domains from a single management point through standardization, global policies and global ID pools. Cisco UCS Central does not replace Cisco UCS Manager, which is the policy driven management for single UCS domain. Instead Cisco UCS Central focuses on managing and monitoring the UCS domains on a global level, across multiple individual Cisco UCS management domains worldwide.

Cisco UCS Central enables you to manage individual or groups of Cisco UCS domains with the following:

  • Centralized Inventory of all Cisco UCS components for a definitive view of the entire infrastructure and simplified integration with current Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) processes.

  • Centralized, policy-based firmware upgrades that can be applied globally or selectively through automated schedules or as business workloads demand

  • Global ID pooling to eliminate identifier conflicts

  • Global administrative policies that enable both global and local management of the Cisco UCS domains

  • An XML API, building on the Cisco UCS Manager XML API for easy integration into higher-level data center management frameworks

  • Bandwidth statistics collection and aggregation with two week or one year retention

  • Remote management to manage various end points in registered Cisco UCS domains

Cisco UCS Central does not reduce or change any local management capabilities of Cisco UCS Manager, such as its API. This allows you to continue usingCisco UCS Manager the same way as when you did not have Cisco UCS Central, and also allows all existing third party integrations to continue to operate without change.

Cisco UCS Central Features

The following table provides a list of features with brief description on the management capabilities of Cisco UCS Central:

Feature

Description

Centralized inventory

Cisco UCS Central automatically aggregates a global inventory of all registered Cisco UCS components, organized by domain, with customizable refresh schedules and provides even easier integration with ITIL processes, with direct access to the inventory through an XML interface.

Centralized fault summary

Cisco UCS Central enables you to view the status of all Cisco UCS infrastructure on the global fault summary panel, with a fault summary organized by domain and fault type. Also provides you the ability to view individual Cisco UCS Manager domains for greater fault detail and more rapid problem resolution. Drilling down on a fault launches the UCS Manager in context for a seamlessly integrated experience.

Centralized, policy-based firmware upgrades

You can download firmware updates automatically from the Cisco.com to a firmware library within Cisco UCS Central. Then schedule automated firmware updates, globally or selectively, based on your business requirements. Managing firmware centrally ensures compliance with IT standards and makes reprovisioning of resources a point-and-click operation.

Global ID pools

Cisco UCS Central eliminates identifier conflicts and ensures portability of software licenses. You are able to centralize the sourcing of all IDs, such as universal user IDs (UUIDs), MAC addresses, IP addresses, and worldwide names (WWNs), from global pools and gain real-time ID use summaries. Centralizing server identifier information makes it simple to move a server identifier between Cisco UCS domains anywhere in the world and reboot an existing workload to run on the new server.

Domain groups

Cisco UCS Central simplifies policy management by providing options to create domain groups and subgroups. A domain group is an arbitrary grouping of Cisco UCS domains that can be used to group systems into geographical or organizational groups. Each domain group can have up to five levels of domain sub groups. This provides you the ability to manage policy exceptions when administering large numbers of Cisco UCS domains. Each sub group has a hierarchical relationship with the parent domain group.

Global administrative policies

Cisco UCS Central helps you to ensure compliance and staff efficiency with global administrative policies. The global policies are defined at the domain group level and can manage anything in the infrastructure, from date and time and user authentication to equipment power and system event log (SEL) policies.

Global service profiles and templates

Global service profiles and templates in Cisco UCS Central enables fast and simplified infrastructure deployment and provides consistency of configurations throughout the enterprise. This feature enables global bare-metal workload mobility very similar to how hypervisor enables virtualized workload mobility.

Statistics management

Cisco UCS Central enables you to gain a better understanding of how Cisco UCS domains are functioning over time to improve operations to smoothly handle periodic peaks and shifts in workload. You can configure and generate reports from the Cisco UCS Central GUI. To accelerate the collection of statistics, the centralized database schema is open and data can be accessed directly or through the Cisco UCS Central Software GUI, command-line interface (CLI), or XML API.

Backup

Cisco UCS Central provides an automatic backup facility that enables quick and efficient backing up the configuration information of the registered Cisco UCS domains and the UCS Central configuration.

High availability

As with all Cisco UCS solutions, Cisco UCS Central is designed for no single point of failure. High availability for Cisco UCS Central Software allows organizations to run Cisco UCS Central using an active-standby model with a heartbeat that automatically fails over if the active Cisco UCS Central does not respond.

XML API

Cisco UCS Central, just like Cisco UCS Manager, has a high-level industry-standard XML API for interfacing with existing management frameworks and orchestration tools. The XML API for Cisco UCS Central Software is similar to the XML API for Cisco UCS Manager, making integration with high-level managers very fast.

Remote Management

Cisco UCS Central enables you to manage various end points in the registered Cisco UCS domains from one management point. You can manage chassis, servers, fabric interconnects, and fabric extenders from Cisco UCS Central GUI or CLI. You can also access tech support files for registered UCS domains from Cisco UCS Central.

Policy/policy component and resources import

Cisco UCS Central provides you the flexibility search for and import a perfect policy/policy component or a resource from one registered UCS domain into CCisco UCS Central. You can then deploy this policy or the resource to other managed domains.

Multi-version Management Support

Cisco UCS Central, release 1.1(2a) provides you the ability to manage multiple Cisco UCS domains with different versions of Cisco UCS Manager at the same time. Cisco UCS Central identifies feature capabilities of each Cisco UCS domain at the time of domain registration. This ability enables you to seamlessly integrate multiple versions Cisco UCS Manager with Cisco UCS Central for management and global service profile deployment.

When you upgrade your Cisco UCS Central to a newer release, based on the features you are using, you might not have to upgrade all of your Cisco UCS Manager release versions to make sure the registered UCS domains are compatible with Cisco UCS Central.

When you register a Cisco UCS domain in Cisco UCS Central, along with the inventory information Cisco UCS Central receives the following information from the domain:

  • Cisco UCS Manager release version

  • List of available supported features in the domain

The available features are sent as a management capability matrix to Cisco UCS Central. Based on this information Cisco UCS Central builds a list of supported features for each registered domain. Based on the feature capabilities in a Cisco UCS domain, Cisco UCS Central decides if certain global management options are possible in the domain. When you perform management tasks, such as deploying a global service profile on a group of domains that include earlier versions of Cisco UCS Manager instances, based on the feature capability matrix, Cisco UCS Central does the following:

  • Delivers the task only to the supported domains.

  • Displays a version incompatibility message for the domains where the feature is not supported.

Supported Features in Cisco UCS Manager

You can view supported features in a Cisco UCS domain using the Cisco UCS Central CLI. Based on the Cisco UCS Manager versions in the registered Cisco UCS domains, Cisco UCS Central CLI builds list of supported features in the following four categories:

  • Server Feature Mask: Includes global service profiles, policy mapping and Inband management, advanced boot order

  • Network Feature Mask: None

  • Storage Feature Mask: FC Zoning and ISCSI IPv6

  • Environment Feature Mask: Power group, remote operations, UCS registration, estimate impact on reconnect

Management Exclusion

Multi-version support also provides you the ability to exclude some features from global management. You can log into a registered UCS domain and turn off a specific feature from Cisco UCS Manager CLI. You can disable the following global management capabilities:

  • Global service profile deployment: If you deploy global service profile on a server pool, and you have disabled global service profile deployment in one of the servers in the pool, Cisco UCS Central excludes the server from the global service profile deployment.

  • In band management: A service profile with inband management capability will not be deployed on the servers where you have excluded inband management feature.

  • Policy mapping: This will disable importing policies or policy components from this Cisco UCS domain into Cisco UCS Central.

  • Remote management: This will restrain controlling physical devices in a Cisco UCS domain from Cisco UCS Central.

You can enable these features any time using the Cisco UCS Manager CLI to restore global management capabilities in the registered Cisco UCS domains at anytime.

Feature Support Matrix

The following table provides a list of features in Cisco UCS Central, and Cisco UCS Manager release versions in which these features are supported:

Important:

Features such as specifying remote location for backup image files, 3rd party certificate, IPv6 inband management support are built in Cisco UCS Central to be compatible with upcoming Cisco UCS Manager releases.

Cisco UCS Central Features

Supported Cisco UCS Central Versions

Supported Cisco UCS Manager Versions

2.1(2a)/2.1(3x)

2.2(1x)

2.2(2x)

3.0(1x)

Multi-version management support and viewing supported Cisco UCS Manager features

1.1(2a)

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Importing policy/policy component and resources

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Specifying remote location for backup image files

No

No

Yes

No

3rd party certificate

No

No

Yes

No

IPv6 inband management support

No

No

Yes

No

Estimate Impact on Reconnect

1.2(1a)

No

No

Yes

Yes


Note

Searching for policy/policy components or resources is supported in Cisco UCS Manager, releases 2.1(2x) and 2.1(3x). To import policies, you must have Cisco UCS Manager, releases 2.2(1b) or higher

Cisco UCS Central GUI Overview

The Cisco UCS Central GUI provides a graphical interface to Cisco UCS Central. You can access the GUI from any computer that meets the requirements listed in the System Requirements section of the Release Notes for Cisco UCS Central.

The Cisco UCS Central GUI contains the following areas and panes:

  • The UCS Faults area that shows the number of aggregated faults for all Cisco UCS domains registered with Cisco UCS Central.

  • A menu bar across the top of the window that provides access to the main categories of information in Cisco UCS Central.

  • A Navigation pane on the left that provides an expandable tree view of the information available under each menu category.

  • A Work pane on the right that displays the tabs associated with the node selected in the Navigation pane.

The menu bar contains the following items:

  • Domains—Provides access to the Cisco UCS Central domain groups, domain group policies, registered Cisco UCS domains, and a fault summary for the Cisco UCS domains.

  • Servers—Provides the option to create global service profiles and policies and provides access to the service profiles and service profile templates configured in the registered Cisco UCS domains, as well as the global UUID suffix pools configured in Cisco UCS Central.

  • Network—Provides access to the global network policies, common VLANs, IP pools and MAC pools configured in Cisco UCS Central.

  • Storage—Provides access to the global storage policies, fabric specific VSANs, global IQN pools and WWN pools configured in Cisco UCS Central.

  • Operations Management—Provides access to manage registered Cisco UCS Domain settings and global configurations:

    • Firmware images

    • Backup and import files

    • Domain group level policies for backup and export, firmware management, maintenance, and operational features such as communication protocols, SNMP, Call Home, remote user authentication, power allocation, and error logging

  • Statistics—Provides option to generate reports on network, cooling, temperature, and power. You can create Standard and Custom reports.

  • Logs and Faults—Provides view audit logs, event logs, and faults.

  • Administration—Provides access to manage Cisco UCS Central management settings. , a registry of all controllers, providers, and clients in Cisco UCS Central, and diagnostic information such as tech support files, audit logs, event logs, and faults.

  • Import—Provides ability to import policies/policy components and resources from registered Cisco UCS domains into Cisco UCS Central.

Logging in to the Cisco UCS Central GUI through HTTP

The default HTTP web link for the Cisco UCS Central GUI is http://UCSCentral_IP, where UCSCentral_IP represents the IP address assigned to Cisco UCS Central.

Procedure
    Step 1   In your web browser, type the Cisco UCS Central GUI web link or select the bookmark in your browser.
    Step 2   On the launch page, do the following:
    1. Enter your username and password.
    2. Click Log In.

    Logging in to the Cisco UCS Central GUI through HTTPS

    The default HTTPS web link for the Cisco UCS Central GUI is https://UCSCentral_IP, where UCSCentral_IP represents the IP address assigned to Cisco UCS Central.

    Procedure
      Step 1   In your web browser, type the Cisco UCS Central GUI web link or select the bookmark in your browser.
      Step 2   On the launch page, do the following:
      1. Enter your username and password.
      2. Click Log In.

      Logging out of the Cisco UCS Central GUI

      Procedure
      In the Cisco UCS Central GUI, click Log Out in the upper right.

      The Cisco UCS Central GUI logs you out immediately and returns your browser to the launch page.