[c-nsp] Cisco UCS Rack servers - C2xxx or C4xxx

[Martin T]

Pete,
thank you for overview!

regards,
martin

2011/7/22 Pete Templin <petelists at templin.org>:
> On 7/21/2011 4:25 PM, Martin T wrote:
>>
>> Chris,
>> I have no hands-on experience with those servers, but as much as I
>> have read, they seem to be solid x86 servers. In addition, this "Cisco
>> Unified Computing System Extended Memory Technology" seems to be a
>> nice feature.
>>
>>
>> Pete,
>> except the "Cisco Unified Computing System Extended Memory
>> Technology"(at least I haven't seen such feature on other provider
>> servers), do they have any additional unique features or differences
>> compared to Dell, IBM or HP servers?
>>
> The system management is extremely impressive.  Note that the blade
> enclosures MUST be networked through the UCS Fabric Interconnect; the FI is
> much like a Nexus 5010/5020 but with different code and extra ICs which
> provide the UCS management engine.  One FI (or one FI redundant pair) can
> control multiple UCS blade enclosures (which can each have multiple servers
> in them), and it's all centrally managed.  I believe there's a noticeable
> learning curve at first, but our server peeps seem to REALLY like it and can
> turn up new service instances very easily.  I also find the network
> redundancy to be very well developed; I believe it's such that the servers
> don't know there's a redundant network connected to them (no added
> complexity of LAG per server).
>
> pt
>
>