Chapter 1. Overview

- Cisco UCS Director

- Cisco UCS Director Installation Guidelines

- About Licenses

- Digitally Signed Images

- Upgrading a Single Node Setup

Cisco UCS Director

Cisco UCS Director is a complete, highly secure, end-to-end management, orchestration, and automation solution for a wide array of Cisco and non-Cisco data infrastructure components, and for the industry's leading converged infrastructure solutions based on the Cisco UCS and Cisco Nexus platforms. For a complete list of supported infrastructure components and solutions, see the Cisco UCS Director Compatibility Matrix.

Cisco UCS Director is a 64-bit appliance that uses the following standard templates:

- Open Virtualization Format (OVF) for VMware vSphere

- Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) for Microsoft Hyper-V

Management through Cisco UCS Director

Cisco UCS Director extends the unification of computing and networking layers through Cisco UCS to provide you with comprehensive visibility and management of your data center infrastructure components. You can use Cisco UCS Director to configure, administer, and monitor supported Cisco and non-Cisco components. The tasks you can perform include the following:

- Create, clone, and deploy service profiles and templates for all Cisco UCS servers and compute applications.

- Monitor organizational usage, trends, and capacity across a converged infrastructure on a continuous basis. For example, you can view heat maps that show virtual machine (VM) utilization across all your data centers.

- Deploy and add capacity to converged infrastructures in a consistent, repeatable manner.

- Manage, monitor, and report on data center components, such as Cisco UCS domains or Cisco Nexus network devices.

- Extend virtual service catalogs to include services for your physical infrastructure.

- Manage secure multi-tenant environments to accommodate virtualized workloads that run with non-virtualized workloads.

Automation and Orchestration with Cisco UCS Director

Cisco UCS Director enables you to build workflows that provide automation services, and to publish the workflows and extend their services to your users on demand. You can collaborate with other experts in your company to quickly and easily create policies. You can build Cisco UCS Director workflows to automate simple or complex provisioning and configuration processes.

Once built and validated, these workflows perform the same way every time, no matter who runs the workflows. An experienced data center administrator can run them, or you can implement role-based access control to enable your users and customers to run the workflows on a self-service basis, as needed.

With Cisco UCS Director, you can automate a wide array of tasks and use cases across a wide variety of supported Cisco and non-Cisco hardware and software data center components. A few examples of the use cases that you can automate include, but are not limited to:

- VM provisioning and lifecycle management

- Network resource configuration and lifecycle management

- Storage resource configuration and lifecycle management

- Tenant onboarding and infrastructure configuration

- Application infrastructure provisioning

- Self-service catalogs and VM provisioning

- Bare metal server provisioning, including installation of an operating system

- Features and Benefits

- Physical and Virtual Management Features

Features and Benefits

The features and benefits of Cisco UCS Director are as follows:

Feature

Benefit

Central management

- Provides a single interface for administrators to provision, monitor, and manage the system across physical, virtual, and bare metal environments

- Provides unified dashboards, reports, and heat maps, which reduce troubleshooting and performance bottlenecks

Self-service catalog

- Allows end users to order and deploy new infrastructure instances conforming to IT-prescribed policies and governance

Adaptive provisioning

- Provides a real-time available capability, internal policies, and application workload requirements to optimize the availability of your resources

Dynamic capacity management

- Provides continuous monitoring of infrastructure resources to improve capacity planning, utilization, and management

- Identifies underutilized and overutilized resources

Multiple hypervisor support

- Supports VMware ESX, ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, and Red Hat hypervisors

Computing management

- Provisions, monitors, and manages physical, virtual, and bare metal servers, as well as blades

- Allows end users to implement virtual machine life-cycle management and business continuance through snapshots

- Allows administrators to access server utilization trend analysis

Network management

- Provides policy-based provisioning of physical and virtual switches and dynamic network topologies

- Allows administrators to configure VLANs, virtual network interface cards (vNICs), port groups and port profiles, IP and Dynamic Host Control Protocol (DHCP) allocation, and access control lists (ACLs) across network devices

Storage management

- Provides policy-based provisioning and management of filers, virtual filers (vFilers), logical unit numbers (LUNs), and volumes

- Provides unified dashboards that allow administrators comprehensive visibility into organizational usage, trends, and capacity analysis details.

Physical and Virtual Management Features

Physical Server Management

- Discover and collect configurations and changes

- Monitor and manage physical servers

- Perform policy-based server provisioning

- Manage blade power

- Manage server life cycle

- Perform server use trending and capacity analysis

- Perform bare metal provisioning using preboot execution environment (PXE) boot management

Virtual Computing Management

- Discover, collect, and monitor virtual computing environments

- Perform policy-based provisioning and dynamic resource allocation

- Manage the host server load and power

- Manage VM life cycle and snapshots

- Perform analysis to assess VM capacity, sprawl, and host utilization

Physical Storage Management

- Discover, collect, and monitor storage filers

- Perform policy-based provisioning of vFilers

- Provision and map volumes

- Create and map Logical Unit Number (LUN) and iGroup instances

- Perform SAN zone management

- Monitor and manage network-attached storage (NAS) and SAN-based storage

- Implement storage best practices and recommendation

Virtual Storage Management

- Discover, collect, and monitor storage of vFilers and storage pools

- Perform policy-based storage provisioning for thick and thin clients

- Create new datastores and map them to virtual device contexts (VDCs)

- Add and resize disks to VMs

- Monitor and manage organizational storage use

- Perform virtual storage trend and capacity analysis

Physical Network Management

- Discover, collect, and monitor physical network elements

- Provision VLANs across multiple switches

- Configure Access Control Lists (ACLs) on network devices

- Configure storage network s

- Implement dynamic network topologies

Virtual Network Management

- Add networks to VMs

- Perform policy-based provisioning with IP and DHCP allocation

- Configure and connect Virtual Network Interface Cards ( vNICs) to VLANs and private VLANs

- Create port groups and port profiles for VMs

- Monitor organizational use of virtual networks

Cisco UCS Director Installation Guidelines

Before you install Cisco UCS Director, be aware of the following:

Cisco UCS Director VM Disks

During Cisco UCS Director installation, on either VMware vSphere or Microsoft Hyper-V, the installer creates two hard disks.

- Primary disk—Contains the Cisco UCS Director appliance and operating system. Post-installation, the primary disk is named Hard Disk 1.

- Secondary disk—Contains the Cisco UCS Director database. Post-installation, the secondary disk is named Hard Disk 2.

Both disks are automatically created during the installation with the same disk format and parameters.

Cisco UCS Director OVF and VHD Zip Files

Note

Cisco UCS Director OVF and VHD zip files are created using zip 3.x in CentOS 6.x. For Linux systems, you can extract the zip files with unzip 6.x or higher or with the latest version of the 7-Zip archiving tool. For Windows systems, you can extract the zip files with the native Extract All in Windows Explorer for Windows 10 and Windows Server 2012 or with the latest versions of archiving tools such as 7-Zip or WinRAR.

About Licenses

You must obtain a license to use Cisco UCS Director, as follows:

1. Before you install Cisco UCS Director, generate the Cisco UCS Director license key and claim a certificate (Product Access Key).

2. Register the Product Access Key (PAK) on the Cisco software license site, as described in Fulfilling the Product Access Key.

3. After you install Cisco UCS Director, update the license in Cisco UCS Director as described in Updating the License.

4. After the license has been validated, you can start to use Cisco UCS Director.

- Fulfilling the Product Access Key

Fulfilling the Product Access Key

Before you begin

You need the PAK number.

Procedure

Step 1

Navigate to the Cisco Software License website.

Step 2

If you are directed to the Product License Registration page, you can take the training or click Continue to Product License Registration.

Step 3

On the Product License Registration page, click Get New Licenses from a PAK or Token.

Step 4

In the Enter a Single PAK or TOKEN to Fulfill field, enter the PAK number.

Step 5

Click Fulfill Single PAK/TOKEN.

Step 6

Complete the additional fields in License Information to register your PAK:

Name

Description

Organization Name

The organization name.

Site Contact Name

The site contact name.

Street Address

The street address of the organization.

City or Town

The city or town.

State or Province

The state or province.

Zip or Postal Code

The zip code or postal code.

Country

The country name.

Step 7

Click Issue Key.

The features for your license appear, and you receive an email with the Digital License Agreement and a zipped license file.

Digitally Signed Images

Cisco UCS Director images are delivered in digitally signed zip files. These signed zip files are wrapped in a container zip file that includes the following:

- Digitally signed zip file—Contains the Cisco UCS Director installation or upgrade image

- Verification program—Verifies the certificate chain and signature. During certificate chain validation, the program verifies the authenticity of the end-entity certificate using Cisco's SubCA and root CA certificates. Then, the authenticated end-entity certificate is used to verify the signature.

- Digital signature file—Contains the signature that you can verify before installation or upgrade.

- Certificate file—Enables you to verify the digital signature. This Cisco-signed x.509 end-entity certificate contains a public key that can be used to verify the signature. This certificate is chained to the Cisco root posted on http://www.cisco.com/security/pki/certs/crcam2.cer.

- ReadMe file—Provides the information and instructions required to verify the digitally signed zip file.

Verify the image offline. Once the image is verified, you can begin the installation or upgrade of Cisco UCS Director.

- Requirements for Verifying Digitally Signed Images

- Verifying a Digitally Signed Image

Requirements for Verifying Digitally Signed Images

Before you verify a Cisco UCS Director digitally signed image, ensure that you have the following on your local machine:

- Connectivity to https://www.cisco.com during the verification process

- Python 2.7.4

- OpenSSL

Verifying a Digitally Signed Image

Before you begin

Download the Cisco UCS Director image from Cisco.com.

Procedure

Step 1

Unzip the file you downloaded from Cisco.com and verify that it contains the following files:

- ReadMe file

- Digitally signed zip file, for example CUCSD_6_6_0_0_66365_VMWARE_GA.zip, CUCSD_6_6_0_0_66717_HYPERV_GA.zip, or cucsd_patch_6_6_0_0_66365.zip

- Certificate file, for example UUCS_GENERIC_IMAGE_SIGNING-CCO_RELEASE.cer

- Digital signature generated for the image, for example CUCSD_6_6_0_0_66365_VMWARE_GA.zip.signature, CUCSD_6_6_0_0_66717_HYPERV_GA.zip.signature, or cucsd_patch_6_6_0_0_66365.zip.signature

- Signature verification program, for example cisco_x509_verify_release.py

Step 2

Review the instructions in the ReadMe file.

Note

If there are any differences between these instructions and those in the ReadMe, follow the ones in the ReadMe.

Step 3

Run the signature verification program from the directory where you have unzipped the downloaded content.

Example: Signature Verification for Upgrade Patch

python ./cisco_x509_verify_release.py -e UCS_GENERIC_IMAGE_SIGNING-CCO_RELEASE.cer
-i cucsd_patch_6_6_0_0_66365.zip -s cucsd_patch_6_6_0_0_66365.zip.signature -v dgst -sha512

Example: Signature Verification for VMware OVF Installation

python ./cisco_x509_verify_release.py -e UCS_GENERIC_IMAGE_SIGNING-CCO_RELEASE.cer
-i CUCSD_6_6_0_0_66365_VMWARE_GA.zip -s CUCSD_6_6_0_0_66365_VMWARE_GA.zip.signature -v dgst -sha512

Example: Signature Verification for Hyper-V VHD Installation

python ./cisco_x509_verify_release.py -e UCS_GENERIC_IMAGE_SIGNING-CCO_RELEASE.cer
-i CUCSD_6_6_0_0_66717_HYPERV_GA.zip -s CUCSD_6_6_0_0_66717_HYPERV_GA.zip.signature -v dgst -sha512

Step 4

Review the output and ensure that the verification has succeeded.

Example: Expected Output for Upgrade

Downloading CA certificate from http://www.cisco.com/security/pki/certs/crcam2.cer ...
Successfully downloaded and verified crcam2.cer.
Downloading SubCA certificate from http://www.cisco.com/security/pki/certs/innerspace.cer ...
Successfully downloaded and verified innerspace.cer.
Successfully verified root, subca and end-entity certificate chain.
Successfully verified the signature of cucsd_patch_6_6_0_0_66365.zip using UCS_GENERIC_IMAGE_SIGNING-CCO_RELEASE.cer

Example: Expected Output for VMware OVF Installation

Downloading CA certificate from http://www.cisco.com/security/pki/certs/crcam2.cer ...
Successfully downloaded and verified crcam2.cer.
Downloading SubCA certificate from http://www.cisco.com/security/pki/certs/innerspace.cer ...
Successfully downloaded and verified innerspace.cer.
Successfully verified root, subca and end-entity certificate chain.
Successfully verified the signature of CUCSD_6_6_0_0_66365_VMWARE_GA.zip using UCS_GENERIC_IMAGE_SIGNING-CCO_RELEASE.cer

Example: Expected Output for Hyper-V VHD Installation

Downloading CA certificate from http://www.cisco.com/security/pki/certs/crcam2.cer ...
Successfully downloaded and verified crcam2.cer.
Downloading SubCA certificate from http://www.cisco.com/security/pki/certs/innerspace.cer ...
Successfully downloaded and verified innerspace.cer.
Successfully verified root, subca and end-entity certificate chain.
Successfully verified the signature of CUCSD_6_6_0_0_66717_HYPERV_GA.zip using UCS_GENERIC_IMAGE_SIGNING-CCO_RELEASE.cer

What to do next

Install or upgrade Cisco UCS Director.

Upgrading a Single Node Setup

For information on upgrading Cisco UCS Director, see the Cisco UCS Director Upgrade Guide for this release.

Chapter 2. Installing Cisco UCS Director on VMware vSphere

- Cisco UCS Director for VMware vSphere

- Default Root and Shelladmin Passwords

- Prerequisites for VMware vSphere

- Minimum System Requirements for a Single-Node Setup

- Installing Cisco UCS Director on VMware vSphere

- Reserving System Resources

Cisco UCS Director for VMware vSphere

Cisco UCS Director can be hosted on VMware vSphere or vCenter as well as HyperV Manager.

Note

The appliance and boot-up logs are located in the /var/log/ucsd directory.

- install.log contains the one time appliance installation logs.

- bootup.log contains the appliance boot-up sequence information, such as startup messages for the database and infrastructure services.

Default Root and Shelladmin Passwords

During installation, Cisco UCS Director uses default passwords for the following accounts:

- Root user for the CentOS operating system of the Cisco UCS Director VM. The default password is cisco123.

- Shelladmin user for the Cisco UCS Director Shell menu. The default password is changeme.

You are not prompted to enter these passwords during installation. However, the first time you log in to Cisco UCS Director after installation is completed, you are prompted to reset the default root and Shelladmin passwords.

The new root and Shelladmin password must meet the password requirements. It cannot be a dictionary word or be all lowercase.

Prerequisites for VMware vSphere

Before you install Cisco UCS Director for VMware vSphere, complete the following steps:

- Install VMware vSphere or vCenter.

- Configure a VMware vSphere or vCenter user account with system administrator privileges for Cisco UCS Director.

You need administrator privileges to connect to and install Cisco UCS Director on VMware vCenter. Cisco UCS Director requires a user account with system administrator privileges to discover, manage and automate VMware vCenter configuration from Cisco UCS Director. These operations include creating, deleting and modifying VMs, ESXi hosts and clusters, datastores and datastore clusters, standard and DV switches, and virtual network port groups.

- Download the Cisco UCS Director software from the Download Software area on Cisco.com.

- Extract the Cisco UCS Director OVF file from the digitally signed zip file to your local disk. See Digitally Signed Images.

Minimum System Requirements for a Single-Node Setup

The minimum system requirements depend on the number of VMs you plan to manage. We recommend deploying a Cisco UCS Director VM on a local datastore with a minimum of 25 MBps I/O speed, or on an external datastore with a minimum of 50 MBps I/O speed.

Note

- For optimal performance, the entire memory and CPU allocations specified in the tables below should be reserved. If you do not follow these specifications, then performance could be affected. For example, for a small, single node deployment 4 vCPU cores with 3000 MHz and 16G of memory must be reserved for the Cisco UCS Director VM.

- The minimum memory required for the inframgr service is automatically set during deployment. However, if you want to modify the memory for the inframgr service, edit the inframgr.env file available in the following location:

/opt/infra/bin/

In this file, update the "MEMORY_MAX" parameter to the value you want. After changing this parameter, restart the inframgr service for the changes to take effect. The default memory settings are MEMORY_MIN=6144m and MEMORY_MAX=6144m.

For information about minimum system requirements for a multi-node setup, see the Cisco UCS Director Multi-Node Installation and Configuration Guide.

Up to 2,000 VMs

If you plan to manage up to 2,000 VMs, the Cisco UCS Director environment must meet at least the minimum system requirements in the following table.

Minimum System Requirements for up to 2,000 VMs

Element

Minimum Supported Requirement

vCPU

4

Memory

16 GB

Primary Disk (Hard Disk 1)

100 GB

Secondary Disk (Hard Disk 2)

100 GB

IOPS

1200

Up to 5,000 VMs

If you plan to manage no more than 5,000 VMs, the Cisco UCS Director environment must meet at least the minimum system requirements and recommended configurations in the following tables.

Minimum System Requirements for up to 5,000 VMs

Element

Minimum Supported Requirement

vCPU

8

Memory

20 GB

Primary Disk (Hard Disk 1)

100 GB

Secondary Disk (Hard Disk 2)

100 GB

IOPS

1200

You must also edit the MEMORY_MIN and MEMORY_MAX settings in /opt/infra/bin/inframgr.env as follows:

MEMORY_MIN=8192m

MEMORY_MAX=8192m

Restart the inframgr service after making the memory size changes.

Edit the following parameters in the /etc/my.cnf file.

Minimum Database Configuration

Element

Minimum Supported Configuration

thread_cache_size

100

max_connections

1000

innodb_lock_wait_timeout

100

query_cache_size

128 MB

innodb_buffer_pool_size

2048 MB

max_connect_errors

10000

connect_timeout

20

innodb_read_io_threads

64

innodb_write_io_threads

64

Restart the Cisco UCS Director database and all Cisco UCS Director services after making these changes to the /etc/my.cnf.

Installing Cisco UCS Director on VMware vSphere

Note

We recommend that you use VMware vCenter for OVF deployment. VMware vCenter versions 5.x and above are supported. OVF deployment wizards support only IPv4 addresses. If you require IPv6, deploy the OVF with IPv4 addresses and then use the ShellAdmin to configure IPv6 addresses.

Before you begin

You need administrator privileges to connect to VMware vCenter. Cisco UCS Director requires a user account with system administrator privileges to discover, manage and automate VMware vCenter configuration from Cisco UCS Director. These operations include creating, deleting and modifying VMs, ESXi hosts and clusters, datastores and datastore clusters, standard and DV switches, and virtual network port groups.

Note

If you do not want to use DHCP, you need the following information: IPv4 address, subnet mask, and default gateway.

Procedure

Step 1

Log in to VMware vSphere Client.

Step 2

In the Navigation pane, choose the Data Center where you want to deploy Cisco UCS Director.

You must choose a location with sufficient vCPU and memory to power on the VM. See Minimum System Requirements for a Single-Node Setup.

Step 3

Choose File > Deploy OVF Template.

Step 4

In the Source pane, do one of the following to choose your OVF source location:

- Click Browse, navigate to the location where you downloaded the OVF, choose the file, and click Open.

- Replace FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name) with the path to the URL on your local area network where the OVF is storesd, inclding the IP address or domain name, and click Next.

Step 5

In the OVF Template Details pane, verify the details, and click Next.

Step 6

In the Name and Location pane, do the following:

1. In the Name field, edit the default VM name.

2. From the Inventory Location area, choose the inventory location where Cisco UCS Director is being deployed, and click Next.

Note

If you chose a Data Center in Step 2, option b might not be available.

3. Click Next.

Step 7

In the Resource Pool pane, choose the required host, cluster, or resource pool, and click Next.

Step 8

In the Disk Format pane, choose one of the following options and click Next:

- Thick Provisioned (Lazy Zeroed) format—To allocate storage immediately in thick format. This is the recommended format. All Cisco UCS Director performance data is verified with this format.

- Thick Provisioned (Eager Zeroed) format—To allocate storage in thick format. It might take longer to create disks using this option.

- Thin Provisioned format—To allocate storage on demand as data is written to disk.

Note

We recommend that you do not choose the Thin Provisioned format.

Step 9

In the Properties pane, enter the following information and click Next:

- Management IP Address—The management IP address to be used for eth0. If your network uses DHCP, leave the default value of 0.0.0.0.

- Management IP Subnet Mask—The management IP subnet mask to be used for eth0. If your network uses DHCP, leave the default value of 0.0.0.0.

- Gateway IP Address

Step 10

In the Ready to Complete pane, do the following:

1. Verify the options that you chose in the previous panes.

2. Check Power on after deployment.

If you do not check this box, you must power on the VM manually after deployment.

3. Click Finish.

Step 11

After the appliance has booted up, copy and paste the Cisco UCS Director management IP address (from the IP address that is shown) into a supported web browser to access the Login page.

Step 12

On the Login page, enter admin as the username and admin for the login password.

Note

We recommend that you change the default admin password after this initial login.

Step 13

Choose Administration > License.

Step 14

On the License page, click License Keys.

Step 15

Click Manage Personalities.

Step 16

On the Personality Configuration screen, check the required personalities.

You can check either UCSD or Big Data or both personalities if required.

Step 17

Click Submit.

Reserving System Resources

For optimal performance, we recommend reserving extra system resources for Cisco UCS Director beyond the minimum system requirements listed in Minimum System Requirements for a Single-Node Setup.

Note

For more information about how to reserve system resources, see the VMWare documentation.

Procedure

Step 1

Log in to VMware vCenter.

Step 2

Choose the VM for Cisco UCS Director.

Step 3

Shut down the VM.

Step 4

In VMware vCenter, click the Resource Allocation tab to view the current resource allocations, and click Edit.

Step 5

In the Virtual Machine Properties pane, edit resource allocations by choosing a resource and entering the new values.

Step 6

Verify that the new resource allocations have been made.

Chapter 3. Installing Cisco UCS Director on Microsoft Hyper-V

- Cisco UCS Director for Microsoft Hyper-V

- Prerequisites

- Minimum System Requirements for a Single Node Setup on Microsoft Hyper-V

- Installing Cisco UCS Director on Microsoft Hyper-V

Cisco UCS Director for Microsoft Hyper-V

Cisco UCS Director can be deployed in a Hyper-V environment.

Note

- We recommend deploying Cisco UCS Director on the Hyper-V Manager host, rather than the SCVMM console.

- The appliance and bootup logs are located in the /var/log/ucsd directory. install.log contains the one time appliance installation logs. bootup.log contains the appliance boot-up sequence information, such as startup messages for the database and infrastructure services.

Prerequisites

Before you install Cisco UCS Director for Microsoft Hyper-V, complete the following steps:

- Install Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM).

If you only have a Hyper-V environment, Cisco UCS Director must be deployed on a Hyper-V host.

- Configure an SCVMM user account with administrator privileges for Cisco UCS Director.

- Download the Cisco UCS Director software from the Download Software area on Cisco.com.

- Extract the Cisco UCS Director VHD and db files from the digitally signed zip file to your local disk. See Digitally Signed Images.

Minimum System Requirements for a Single Node Setup on Microsoft Hyper-V

The minimum system requirements depend upon how many VMs you plan to manage. We recommend deploying a Cisco UCS Director VM on a local datastore with a minimum of 25 Mbps I/O speed, or on an external datastore with a minimum of 50 Mbps I/O speed.

Note

- For optimal performance, reserve additional CPU and memory resources. We recommend that you reserve the following resources in addition to the minimum system requirements listed in the tables below: CPU resources of more than or equal to 3000MHz, and memory reservation of more than or equal to 1 GB. You should add more vCPUs if the Cisco UCS Director VM’s CPU usage is consistently high.

- The minimum memory required for the inframgr service is automatically set during deployment. However, if you want to modify the memory for the inframgr service, edit the inframgr.env file available in the following location:

/opt/infra/bin/inframgr.env

In this file, update the "MEMORY_MAX" parameter to the value you want. After changing this parameter, restart the service for the changes to take effect. The default memory settings are MEMORY_MIN=6144 m and MEMORY_MAX=6144 m.

For information about minimum system requirements for a multi-node setup, see Cisco UCS Director Multi-Node Installation and Configuration Guide.

Up to 2,000 VMs

If you plan to manage up to 2,000 VMs, the Cisco UCS Director environment must meet at least the minimum system requirements in the following table.

Minimum System Requirements for up to 2,000 VMs

Element

Minimum Supported Requirement

vCPU

4

Memory

16 GB

Primary Disk (Hard Disk 1)

100 GB

Secondary Disk (Hard Disk 2)

100 GB

IOPS

1200

Up to 5,000 VMs

If you plan to manage no more than 5,000 VMs, the Cisco UCS Director environment must meet at least the minimum system requirements and recommended configurations in the following tables.

Minimum System Requirements for up to 5,000 VMs

Element

Minimum Supported Requirement

vCPU

8

Memory

20 GB

Primary Disk (Hard Disk 1)

100 GB

Secondary Disk (Hard Disk 2)

100 GB

IOPS

1200

You must also edit the MEMORY_MIN and MEMORY_MAX setting in /opt/infra/bin/inframgr.env as follows:

MEMORY_MIN=8192m

MEMORY_MAX=8192m

Edit the following parameters in the /etc/my.cnf file.

Minimum Database Configuration

Element

Minimum Supported Configuration

thread_cache_size

100

max_connections

1000

innodb_lock_wait_timeout

100

query_cache_size

128 MB

innodb_buffer_pool_size

2 GB

max_connect_errors

10000

connect_timeout

20

innodb_read_io_threads

64

innodb_write_io_threads

64

Note

After updating and saving the /etc/my.cnf file, you need to restart the Cisco UCS Director database.

Installing Cisco UCS Director on Microsoft Hyper-V

Before you begin

- System administrator privileges for Hyper-V are required.

- Microsoft Windows 2012 or Windows 2012 R2 are required to deploy this release of Cisco UCS Director.

Procedure

Step 1

Log into the Hyper-V host.

Step 2

Choose Start > Administrative Tools to open Hyper-V Manager.

Step 3

In the Hyper-V Manager dialog box, choose Action > New Virtual Machine.

Step 4

In the Before You Begin pane, click Next.

Step 5

In the Name and Location pane, do the following:

1. In the Name field, edit the default VM name.

2. Check the Store the virtual machine in a different location checkbox and specify the alternate location.

3. Click Next.

Step 6

In the Select Generation pane, choose Generation1.

With Generation1, this virtual machine provides the same virtual hardware to the virtual machine as in previous versions of Hyper-V.

Step 7

In the Assign Memory pane, enter the amount of memory to allocate to this VM (16 GB minimum) and click Next.

Step 8

In the Configure Networking pane, click Next to accept the default option in the Connection field.

The default option is Not Connected.

Step 9

In the Connect Virtual Hard Disk pane, choose Attach a virtual disk later and click Next.

Step 10

In the Completing the New Virtual Machine Wizard pane, verify the settings and click Finish.

Step 11

In the Navigation pane, right-click the new VM and choose Settings.

Step 12

In the Navigation pane, choose IDE Controller 0.

Step 13

In the IDE Controller pane, choose Hard Drive and click Add.

Note

You need to add two hard drives since we have two VHD files separately for OS and application, and for database.

Step 14

In the Hard Drive pane, choose the downloaded Cisco UCS Director .vhd file and click OK.

Step 15

Inspect the virtual hard drive properties.

Step 16

In the Navigation pane, choose Memory.

Step 17

In the Memory pane, enter the recommended value (minimum 16 GB).

Step 18

In the Navigation pane, choose Processor.

Step 19

In the Processor pane, enter the recommended value (4 vCPU).

Step 20

Remove the network adapter that was created when you created the new VM.

Step 21

In the Navigation pane, choose Add Hardware.

Step 22

In the Add Hardware pane, choose Network Adapter and click OK.

Step 23

In the Navigation pane, choose the network adapter.

Step 24

In the Network Adapter pane, in the Network field, choose your network and click OK.

Step 25

Verify that you have allocated sufficient vCPU and Memory resources. For the minimum resource requirements, see Minimum System Requirements for a Single Node Setup on Microsoft Hyper-V.

Step 26

Power on the VM.

Optionally you can configure network properties from the shelladmin.

By default, this version of Microsoft Hyper-V uses DHCP for address allocation. If you want to use a static IP address instead of DHCP, you can change this configuration through ShellAdmin.

Step 27

After the appliance has booted up, copy and paste the Cisco UCS Director IP address that is displayed into a supported web browser to access the Login page.

Step 28

At the login prompt, enter admin for username and admin for the password to log into Cisco UCS Director.

Note

We recommend that you change the default admin password after this initial login.

What to do next

Update your license.

Chapter 4. Restarting Cisco UCS Director

This chapter contains the following sections:

- Restarting Cisco UCS Director

Restarting Cisco UCS Director

If you see errors after installing Cisco UCS Director, log in to the Secure Shell (SSH) client and verify whether services are running or not.

Procedure

Step 1

Log in to the Cisco UCS Director VM console with the shelladmin user credentials:

If this is the first time you have logged into the ShellAdmin after deployment, you will be prompted to change the default password.

Step 2

To display the status of all services, choose Display services status.

If this option is not available, you can use SSH to restart the services.

Step 3

Verify that the following services appear:

1. broker
2. controller
3. eventmgr
4. idaccessmgr
5. inframgr
6. websock
7. connectormgr
8. tomcat
9. flashpolicy
10. mysqld

Note

Services that start in the background do not appear in the window.

Step 4

Choose Stop services.

Step 5

To verify that all services are stopped, choose Display services status.

Step 6

To restart services, choose Start services.

Chapter 5. Post-Installation Configuration

- Changing the Admin Password

- Updating the License

- Configuring the Network Interface in ShellAdmin

- Changing the Maximum Packet Size

Changing the Admin Password

You are prompted to change the default admin user password after you log into Cisco UCS Director for the first time. On subsequent login, you can follow these steps to change the admin user password.

Procedure

Step 1

Choose Administration > Users and Groups.

Step 2

On the Users and Groups page, click Users.

Step 3

Click the row with the administration user for which you want to change the default password.

Step 4

From the More Actions drop-down list, choose Change Password.

Step 5

On the Change Password screen, enter the old password and then the new password and confirm it.

Step 6

Click Save.

Updating the License

Before you begin

If you received a zipped license file by an email, extract and save the license (.lic) file to your local machine.

Procedure

Step 1

Choose Administration > License.

Step 2

On the License page, click License Keys.

Step 3

Click Update License.

Step 4

On the Update License screen, do the following:

1. Drop the .lic file from your local system or click Select a File and navigate to the location where you stored the .lic file.

To enter license text instead of file upload, check the Enter License Text checkbox and enter the license text in the License Text field.

2. Click Submit.

The license file is processed, and a message appears confirming the successful update.

Configuring the Network Interface in ShellAdmin

This procedure is optional.

Procedure

Step 1

Log in to the Cisco UCS Director VM console with the shelladmin user credentials:

If this is the first time you have logged into the ShellAdmin after deployment, you will be prompted to change the default password.

Step 2

Choose Configure Network Interface.

Step 3

At the Do you want to Configure DHCP/STATIC IP [D/S] prompt, enter one of the following choices:

- If DHCP is enabled, enter D (IP addresses are assigned automatically)

- To configure static IP, enter S, and then choose the interface you want to configure at the next prompt followed by the option to select IPv4 or IPv6. This is followed by the confirmation of the interface selected and the version of IP for which you select Y to continue. Then enter the following details:

- IP address

- Netmask

- Gateway

- DNS Server 1

- DNS Server 2

Step 4

Confirm when prompted.

Changing the Maximum Packet Size

The default maximum packet (query) size for the Cisco UCS Director database queries is 4 MB. If one or more of your pods requires a larger size, we recommend that you increase the configuration of the maximum packet size to 100 MB. For example, the import of large open automation modules typically require a larger packet size.

Note

For a multi-node setup, perform this configuration on the inventory database and monitoring database nodes.

Procedure

Step 1

In the shelladmin, choose Login as Root to log in to Cisco UCS Director.

Step 2

Navigate to the /etc folder.

Step 3

Open the my.cnf file and locate the max_allowed_packet parameter.

Step 4

Change the value of the max_allowed_packet parameter to max_allowed_packet=100M

Step 5

Save the my.cnf file.

Step 6

In the shelladmin, stop and restart the Cisco UCS Director services on every node, as follows:

1. Choose Stop services.

2. To verify that all services are stopped, choose Display services status.

3. After all services have stopped on the node, choose Start services.

Ports

This appendix contains the following sections:

- Cisco UCS Director TCP and UDP Port Usage

- Port List

- Multi-Node Port Requirements

Cisco UCS Director TCP and UDP Port Usage

This section provides a list of the TCP and UDP ports that Cisco UCS Director uses for connections and communications with external applications or devices. The port usage depends upon whether you have deployed Cisco UCS Director on VMware vSphere or Microsoft Hyper-V.

- Cisco UCS Director TCP and UDP Port Usage on VMware vSphere

- Cisco UCS Director TCP and UDP Port Usage on Microsoft Hyper-V

Cisco UCS Director TCP and UDP Port Usage on VMware vSphere

The following figure shows the network ports used for communication between the Cisco UCS Director appliance and managed devices, ESX servers, Bare Metal Agent, PowerShell Agent, NTP, and Active Directory for an installation on VMware vSphere.

Cisco UCS Director TCP and UDP Port Usage

Cisco UCS Director TCP and UDP Port Usage on Microsoft Hyper-V

The following figure shows the network ports used for communication between the Cisco UCS Director appliance and managed devices, ESX servers, Bare Metal Agent, PowerShell Agent, NTP, and Active Directory for an installation on Microsoft Hyper-V.

Cisco UCS Director TCP and UDP Port Usage

Port List

Default Port

Protocol

Description

22

TCP

SSH

80

TCP/UDP

HTTP

69

TFTP

TFTP for Cisco UCS Director Bare Metal Agent

443

UDP

HTTPS

27000/7279/8082 (Mgmt)

TCP

Citrix licensing

2598/1494/2112/2513

TCP

Virtual Desktop Agent for Desktops

67/68

UDP

DHCP

389/636

3268/3269

TCP/UDP

TCP

Active Directory

53

TCP/UDP

DNS

123

TCP/UDP

NTP

3306

TCP/UDP

MySQL

8787/5900-5964

TCP

Cisco UCS Director + VNC Connectivity

3389

TCP/UDP

Cisco UCS Director + RDP Connectivity

80/443/8080

TCP/UDP

Cisco UCS Director + NetApp Connectivity

80/443

UDP

Cisco UCS Director + Cisco UCS Manager Connectivity

80/443

UDP

Cisco UCS Director + vCenter Connectivity

3389

TCP/UDP

RDP

135/445

TCP

SMB/RPC

88

TCP/UDP

Kerberos

137

TCP/UDP

NetBIOS Name (nbname)

138

TCP/UDP

NetBIOS datagram (nbdatagram)

139

TCP

NetBIOS session (nbsession)

80/443

UDP

Desktop Delivery Controller <--> vCenter

8080 through ICA

TCP

Desktop Delivery Controller <--> Virtual Desktops

1494/2598/2512/2513

TCP

Users (Citrix Recvr) <--> Virtual Desktops

389/636 (LDAP Ports)

TCP/UDP

Desktop Delivery Controller <--> Active Directory

389/636, 3268/3269, 53

TCP/UDP

Virtual Desktops <--> Active Directory + DNS

5985/5986

TCP

PowerShell Agent <-> Xendesktop through WinRM

43891

TCP/UDP

Cisco UCS Director <--> PowerShell Agent

80/8081

TCP

XenApp

902

TCP

VMwareESXi host management and VM customization and to execute VIX tasks

903

TCP

VMwareESXi host management and VM customization and to execute VIX tasks (for Vmware vCenter releases prior to 5.0)

9443

TCP

VMware vSphere Web Client HTTPS (to access HTML5 based VM console in vCenter 6.0 and above)

7343

TCP

VMware vSphere Web Client - HTML5 Remote Console, HTTPS (vCenter 5.5 Update 2 and later)

Multi-Node Port Requirements

The ports listed in Cisco UCS Director TCP and UDP Port Usage are applicable for both single and multi-node setups.

For a multi-node setup, the following ports must be opened between the nodes:

- From the primary and service nodes to database nodes: port 3306

- From the primary node to service nodes: ports 80 and 443

Preface

- Audience

- Conventions

- Related Documentation

- Documentation Feedback

- Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request

Audience

This guide is intended primarily for data center administrators who use Cisco UCS Director and who have responsibilities and expertise in one or more of the following:

- Server administration

- Storage administration

- Network administration

- Network security

- Virtualization and virtual machines

Conventions

Text Type

Indication

GUI elements

GUI elements such as tab titles, area names, and field labels appear in this font.

Main titles such as window, dialog box, and wizard titles appear in this font.

Document titles

Document titles appear in this font.

TUI elements

In a Text-based User Interface, text the system displays appears in this font.

System output

Terminal sessions and information that the system displays appear in this font.

CLI commands

CLI command keywords appear in this font .

Variables in a CLI command appear in this font .

[ ]

Elements in square brackets are optional.

{x | y | z}

Required alternative keywords are grouped in braces and separated by vertical bars.

[x | y | z]

Optional alternative keywords are grouped in brackets and separated by vertical bars.

string

A nonquoted set of characters. Do not use quotation marks around the string or the string will include the quotation marks.

< >

Nonprinting characters such as passwords are in angle brackets.

[ ]

Default responses to system prompts are in square brackets.

!, #

An exclamation point (!) or a pound sign (#) at the beginning of a line of code indicates a comment line.

Note

Means reader take note. Notes contain helpful suggestions or references to material not covered in the document.

Caution

Means reader be careful. In this situation, you might perform an action that could result in equipment damage or loss of data.

Tip

Means the following information will help you solve a problem. The tips information might not be troubleshooting or even an action, but could be useful information, similar to a Timesaver.

Timesaver

Means the described action saves time. You can save time by performing the action described in the paragraph.

Warning

IMPORTANT SAFETY INSTRUCTIONS

This warning symbol means danger. You are in a situation that could cause bodily injury. Before you work on any equipment, be aware of the hazards involved with electrical circuitry and be familiar with standard practices for preventing accidents. Use the statement number provided at the end of each warning to locate its translation in the translated safety warnings that accompanied this device.

SAVE THESE INSTRUCTIONS

Related Documentation

Cisco UCS Director Documentation Roadmap

For a complete list of Cisco UCS Director documentation, see the Cisco UCS Director Documentation Roadmap available at the following URL: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/unified_computing/ucs/ucs-director/doc-roadmap/b_UCSDirectorDocRoadmap.html.

Cisco UCS Documentation Roadmaps

For a complete list of all B-Series documentation, see the Cisco UCS B-Series Servers Documentation Roadmap available at the following URL: http://www.cisco.com/go/unifiedcomputing/b-series-doc.

For a complete list of all C-Series documentation, see the Cisco UCS C-Series Servers Documentation Roadmap available at the following URL: http://www.cisco.com/go/unifiedcomputing/c-series-doc.

Note

The Cisco UCS B-Series Servers Documentation Roadmap includes links to documentation for Cisco UCS Manager and Cisco UCS Central. The Cisco UCS C-Series Servers Documentation Roadmap includes links to documentation for Cisco Integrated Management Controller.

Documentation Feedback

To provide technical feedback on this document, or to report an error or omission, please send your comments to ucs-director-docfeedback@cisco.com. We appreciate your feedback.

Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request

For information on obtaining documentation, using the Cisco Bug Search Tool (BST), submitting a service request, and gathering additional information, see What's New in Cisco Product Documentation.

To receive new and revised Cisco technical content directly to your desktop, you can subscribe to the What's New in Cisco Product Documentation RSS feed. RSS feeds are a free service.

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