In Cisco UCS Director versions prior to Release 6.7.4.x, the multi-node setup included the following nodes:

• One primary node

• One or more service nodes

• One monitoring database

• One inventory database

Similar to 6.7.4.x release, 6.8.0.0 also support same capabilities and scale with the following nodes:

• One database node

• One primary node

Note	After upgrading to release 6.7.4.x, since the multi-node configuration requires only 2 VMs, you can claim the freed up VMs.

Before you configure an optimized multi-node setup, review the following guidelines:

• Plan the locations and IP addresses of your nodes carefully. You cannot change the types of any nodes. For example, you cannot reconfigure a database node as a primary node or a primary node as a database node.

• Install licenses only on the primary node.

• After you configure the nodes, the list of operations available in the shelladmin changes for the database node and the primary node.

• If you modify your standalone configuration to a multi-node setup, you cannot revert to the standalone configuration unless you took a snapshot of the standalone configuration.

• Connector packs are installed only on the primary node, while Cisco UCS Director patch releases are installed on the database node. As a result, you may notice a discrepancy of software versions between the primary node and the database node.

Before you configure a multi-node setup for Cisco UCS Director, consider the following best practices:

• To maximize output and minimize network latency, we recommend that the primary node and the database node reside on the same host.

• Network latency (average RTT) between the primary or service node and the physical, virtual compute, storage, and network infrastructures should be minimized. A lower average RTT results in increased overall performance.

• You can reserve more CPU cycles (MHz) and memory than recommended for better performance at system load.

  See System Requirements for the Primary Node and System Requirements for the Database Node.

• You must configure passwordless authentication between the application node and the database node to:

  • Use the backup and restore feature available in Cisco Intersight on claimed UCS Director instances.

  • Enforce default password reset capability for SSH root and shelladmin users.

    You are prompted to reset the default SSH root user and shelladmin user passwords before logging into the Cisco UCS Director administrator interface. You will be prompted to reset these passwords only if you have not reset the passwords prior to upgrading to release 6.7(4.0). In an optimized multi-node environment, you must reset the password for these user accounts on the application node and the database node.

  See Setting Up Passwordless Authentication.