You can configure firmware downloads in Cisco UCS Central to communicate with Cisco website at specified intervals and fetch the firmware image list. After configuring Cisco credentials for image download, when you refresh, Cisco UCS Central fetches the available image data from Cisco.com and displays the firmware image in the firmware image library. You can download the actual firmware images when creating a policy using the firmware image version or when downloading the image using the Store Locally option.

Image Library in Cisco UCS Central displays a list of all firmware images downloaded into Cisco UCS Central from Cisco.com, local file system and remote file system.

The source for images downloaded from Cisco.com is Cisco and for images downloaded from local or remote file system is local. These firmware images are available for creating firmware policies.

The following are the options to delete firmware images from the library:

• Deleting the firmware image — You can delete any downloaded image in the firmware library using the delete option.
• Purging the firmware image metadata — You can delete the image metadata using the purge option. Even after you delete the firmware image from the library, the metadata will still exist. You can use the metadata information to download the actual firmware image anytime from Cisco.com even after deleting the image. If you want to completely remove the firmware image and associated metadata from the firmware image library, make sure to delete the actual firmware image and purge the metadata from the library.
  Important:

  If you have already downloaded the image corresponding to the metadata into the firmware image library, you cannot purge the metadata without deleting the image.

You can deploy infrastructure and server firmware upgrades for registered Cisco UCS domains from Cisco UCS Central.

If desired, you can upgrade the Cisco UCS domains in each domain group with different versions of firmware. Cisco UCS Central also provides you the option to acknowledge the fabric interconnect reboot globally from Cisco UCS Central or individually from each Cisco UCS domain.

You can create only one infrastructure firmware package for one Cisco UCS Domain group in Cisco UCS Central . The member Cisco UCS domains in a domain group will run the same infrastructure firmware version.

Note	You can configure infrastructure firmware update from domain group root or at the domain group level. When you update the firmware at the domain group root level, all the domain groups under the root will get the same infrastructure firmware version.

Cisco UCS Central automatically creates two schedules for infrastructure firmware update and fabric interconnect reboot. These schedules are also updated in Cisco UCS Manager. Based on the schedule, the infrastructure firmware upgrade process begins in the registered Cisco UCS domains and generates the first acknowledge pending activities message in Cisco UCS Central. When you acknowledge the first pending activity, the components are updated with the specified infrastructure firmware package.

After the infrastructure firmware is updated, you will receive another pending activity notification. This acknowledgment prevents any accidental reboot of fabric interconnects. You have to acknowledge this pending activity to reboot the fabric interconnect and complete the infrastructure firmware upgrade.

Note	If you have multiple domains in a domain group, you will have acknowledge each pending activity for each Cisco UCS domains to complete the infrastructure firmware upgrade process.

The host firmware policy you create in Cisco UCS Central will be available for association to a service profile in a Cisco UCS Domain registered to a domain group.

To upgrade firmware by domain groups in registered Cisco UCS domains, you can schedule upgrades from Cisco UCS Central in the following ways:

• As a one time occurrence
• As a recurring occurrence that recurs at designated intervals

If you configure the schedules for user acknowledgment, the fabric interconnect will not reboot without explicit acknowledgment.

Associate the maintenance policy to a service profile in Cisco UCS Manager.

The Capability Catalog is a set of tunable parameters, strings, and rules. Cisco UCS uses the catalog to update the display and configurability of components such as newly qualified DIMMs and disk drives for servers.

The catalog is divided by hardware components, such as the chassis, CPU, local disk, and I/O module. You can use the catalog to view the list of providers available for that component. There is one provider per hardware component. Each provider is identified by the vendor, model (PID), and revision. For each provider, you can also view details of the equipment manufacturer and the form factor.

For information about which hardware components are dependent upon a particular catalog release, see the component support tables in the Service Notes for the B- Series servers. For information about which components are introduced in a specific release, see the Cisco UCS Release Notes.

You can create only one capability catalog per each Cisco UCS Domain group in Cisco UCS Central. All the member Cisco UCS domains of a group will run the same firmware version.

Note	You can configure capability catalog update from domain group root or at the domain group level. When you update the capability catalog at the domain group root level, if the domain groups under the root do not have a capability catalog defined, will get the same capability catalog version.

Cisco UCS Central triggers the capability catalog update in the specified Cisco UCS domains.