The definitive guide to UCS and the Cisco® Data Center Server: planning, architecture, components, deployment, and benefits With its new Unified Computing System (UCS) family of products, Cisco has introduced a fundamentally new vision for data center computing: one that reduces ownership cost, improves agility, and radically simplifies management. In this book, three Cisco insiders thoroughly explain UCS, and offer practical insights for IT professionals and decision-makers who are evaluating or implementing it.   The authors establish the context for UCS by discussing the implications of virtualization, unified I/O, large memories and other key technologies, and showing how trends like cloud computing and green IT will drive the next-generation data center. Next, they take a closer look at the evolution of server CPU, memory, and I/O subsystems, covering advances such as the Intel® XEON® 5500, 5600, 7500, DDR3 memory, and unified I/O over 10 Gbps Ethernet.   Building on these fundamentals, the authors then discuss UCS in detail, showing how it systematically overcomes key limitations of current data center environments. They review UCS features, components, and architecture, and demonstrate how it can improve data center performance, reliability, simplicity, flexibility, and energy efficiency. Along the way, they offer realistic planning, installation, and migration guidance: everything decision-makers and technical implementers need to gain maximum value from UCS–now, and for years to come.   Silvano Gai has spent 11 years as Cisco Fellow, architecting Catalyst®, MDS, and Nexus switches. He has written several books on networking, written multiple Internet Drafts and RFCs, and is responsible for 80 patents and applications. He teaches a course on this book’s topics at Stanford University.   Tommi Salli, Cisco Technical Marketing Engineer, has nearly 20 years of experience with servers and applications at Cisco, Sun, VERITAS, and Nuova Systems.   Roger Andersson, Cisco Manager, Technical Marketing, spent more than 12 years in the CLARiiON® Engineering Division at EMC, and 5 years as Technical Product Manager at VERITAS/Symantec. He is now focused on Cisco UCS system management.   Streamline data centers with UCS to systematically reduce cost of ownership Eliminate unnecessary server components–and their setup, management, power, cooling, and cabling Use UCS to scale service delivery, simplify service movement, and improve agility Review the latest advances in processor, memory, I/O, and virtualization architectures for data center servers Understand the specific technical advantages of UCS Integrate UCS 6100 Fabric Interconnect, Cisco UCS 2100 Series Fabric Extenders, UCS 5100 Series Blade Server Enclosures, UCS B-Series Blade Servers, UCS C-Series Rack Servers, and UCS Adapters Use Cisco UCS Manager to manage all Cisco UCS components as a single, seamless entity Integrate third-party management tools from companies like BMC ®, CA ®, EMC ®, IBM ®, Microsoft ®, and VMware ® Practice all this with a copy of Cisco Unified Computing System™ Platform Emulator Lite (UCSPE Lite) on the DVD in the back of the book   This book is part of the Networking Technology Series from Cisco Press®, which offers networking professionals valuable information for constructing efficient networks, understanding new technologies, and building successful careers.    

Table of Contents:
  Preface xvi Nomenclature xvi Chapter 1 Introduction 1     Data Center Challenges 1         Environmental Concerns–“Green” 2         Server Consolidation 3         Virtualization 4         Real Estate Power and Cooling 5         Cabling 5         Disaster Recovery 7         Network Virtualization 8         Desktop Virtualization 9         Cloud Computing 10     Evolution of Data Centers 10         Stand-Alone Servers 11         Scale-Up 12         Scale-Out 12         Scale-Up vs. Scale-Out 12         Rack-Optimized Servers 13         Blade Servers 14         Server Sprawl 15         Virtualization 17         Server Deployment Today 18     Unified Computing System (UCS) 18 Chapter 2 Server Architectures 23     The Processor Evolution 24         Sockets 24         Cores 25         Threads 27         Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology 27         Front-Side Bus 28         Dual Independent Buses 29         Dedicated High-Speed Interconnect 30         Intel® QuickPath Interconnect 31     The Memory Subsystem 33         SRAMs 34         DRAMs 34         SDRAMs 35         DIMMs 36         ECC and Chipkill® 38         Memory Ranks 39         UDIMMs and RDIMMs 40         DDR2 and DDR3 41     The I/O Subsystem 43         PCI Express® 43     Intel Microarchitectures 45         Platform Architecture 46         CPU Architecture 49         Virtualization Support 56         Advanced Reliability 59         Advanced Encryption Standard 60         Trusted Execution Technology 61         Chip Design 61     Chipset Virtualization Support 63         Intel® VT-d for Direct I/O 64         Intel® VT-c for Connectivity 65         VMDirectPath® 68 Chapter 3 UCS Enabling Technologies 69     Unified Fabric 69         10 Gigabit Ethernet 71         Lossless Ethernet 72         Terminology 72         PFC (Priority-Based Flow Control) 72         DCBX: Data Center Bridging eXchange 73         Bandwidth Management 74         FCoE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet) 75     Virtualization 81         Server Virtualization 81         SR-IOV 83         The IEEE Standard Effort 83         Port Extenders and Virtualization 84         VNTag 86         Fabric Extenders 88         VN-Link 90     Memory Expansion 93         Speed vs. Capacity 94         Capacity vs. Cost 94         How Much Memory Is Required? 95         NUMA 98         The UCS Approach 98         The UCS Advantage 101 Chapter 4 I/O Adapters 103     Disclaimer 104     The Intel® Approach 104         10 Gigabit Ethernet NIC Solutions 104     Intel® 82598 10 Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Oplin) 105         Support for Multi-Core CPUs 108         Hardware-Assisted Virtualization 109         Advanced Features for Storage over Ethernet 109     Intel® 82599 10 Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Niantic) 109         Improved Performance 112         Hardware-Assisted Virtualization 113         Support for DCB (Data Center Bridging) 114         Storage over Ethernet 115         Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) 115         Time Sync–IEEE 1588 115         Double VLAN 116         Security 116     Intel’s NetEffect™ iWARP Controller (NE020) 116         iWARP and RDMA 117         N2020 Architecture 119         Performance 120         Summary 122     Converged Network Adapters (CNAs) 123     Cisco® Palo 124     Emulex 129         Emulex OneConnect OCm10102-FC 130         FCoE Features 132         Ethernet Features 133         Functional Architecture 133         Deployment in UCS 133         Management of OneConnect UCNAs 134         Benefits of OneConnect UCNAs 136     QLogic® 137         8000 Series–First Generation CNA 137         8100 Series–Second Generation CNA 138     Broadcom® 144         BCM57711 Dual-Port 10GbE Controller 144         Advanced Integration 145         High-Performance Hardware Offload 146         Broadcom and UCS 151 Chapter 5 UCS B-Series Blade Servers 153     Components Overview 153         UCS Manager 154         UCS 6100 Series Fabric Interconnects 154         UCS 2100 Series Fabric Extenders 155         UCS 5100 Series Blade Server Chassis 156         UCS B-Series Blade Servers 157         I/O Adapters 159         Overall Organization 160         UCS C-Series Rack Servers 161     Detailed Description 161         UCS 6100 Series Fabric Interconnects 161         UCS 2104XP Fabric Extender 168         UCS 5108 Blade Server Chassis 172         Two-Socket Blade Architecture 172         UCS B200 Two-Socket Server 179         UCS B250 Extended Memory Server 181         Four-Socket Blade Architecture 182         UCS B440 Four-Socket Server 186     Description of Communication Flows 187         The Boot Sequences 187         Fabric Interconnect and UCSM 189         Fabric Extender 190         Baseboard Management Controller 190 Chapter 6 UCS C-Series Rack Servers 193     UCS C200 194     UCS C210 195     UCS C250 199     UCS C460 202         Processors 207     Adapters 212     Hard Disk 213     Management 213     Software 219     Physical Parameters 220         C200 220         C210 220         C250 220         C460 221         Weights 221 Chapter 7 UCS Manager 223     UCSM Overall Architecture 223         System Components 223         UCSM Is a Model-Driven Framework 227     Management Information Model 232     Available Integration Points 233         Interfaces 233         Standard (Cut-Through) Interfaces in a UCS 235         Standard Interfaces in a UCS 237         Native Interfaces in UCS 239     Operating Principles 240         Configuration Policies 242         Operational Policies 243         Global vs. Local Policies 244         Pools 244         Manual Population of Pools 250         Automatic Population of Pools 250         Service Profiles 252         Service Profile Templates 253         Organizations 255         Hierarchical Pool and Policy Resolution 256         Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) 257         Locales 258         Users and Authentication 259     UCSM and VMware’s vCenter Integration 259         Integration Architecture 260         Virtualization Support 260         Management Plane Integration 261         Port-Profiles 261         vNIC Template 262         Runtime Policy Resolution for Dynamic VIFs 262         UCS Manager and VM in GUI 264     Basic System Management with UCSM 264         Hardware Management 264         Example of a Chassis Discovery Process 265         Retirement of Hardware 266         Firmware Management 266         Firmware Download Formats 267         Firmware Life Cycle 268         Management Firmware Pack Policy 272         Host Firmware Pack Policy 272         The Stateless Computing Deployment Model 272         The Basic Computing Deployment Model 273         System Setup–Initial Setup 274         The Default Computing Deployment Model 274         The Stateless Computing Deployment Model 275         Requirements for Stateless Service Profiles 280         System Logging 287         Faults and Events 289         Audit Log 291     Backup and Restore of UCS Manager 292         Full State Backup 292         Configuration-Only Backup 292         Backing Up the UCS 292         Restoring a Configuration-Only Backup 293     Integrating with UCS 294         UCS Manager XML API 295         UCS XML API Object Naming 296         Method Categories 296     UCS Platform Emulator 301 Chapter 8 Third-Party Management Software 307     BMC® 307         Just-in-Time Provisioning 308         Embedded System Management 309         Business Service Provisioning 313         Composite Packaging 315         Configuration Management 316         Granular Access Control 318         Compliance 318         Vision for Automated and Efficient IT 319     CA® Management Integration with Cisco UCS 322         Integration Point 323         CA Infrastructure Management Integration 323         Discovery, Fault, and Service Modeling 324         Performance Management and Analytics 327         Automation 328         Change and Configuration Management 329         Service Profile and Application Templates 330         Automated Provisioning 331         Policy-Based Automation 332         User Self-Service 333         Private Cloud Deployments 333     EMC® Ionix Products for Cisco UCS 337         Unified Infrastructure Manager (UIM) 337         Data Center Insight (DCI) 341     IBM Tivoli Software Integration with Cisco UCS 344     Microsoft System Center 346     VMware vCenter 347         Communications 348         Configuration of the DVS 350         Virtual Machine Adapters 350         Resource Checks for DRS, HA, and FT 350 Chapter 9 Planning a UCS Blade Server Installation 353     The Owner of the UCS Domain 353         User Authentication 354     Power and Cooling 354     Physical Sizing and Environmental Requirements 357     Connectivity 359     Choosing the Right Cables 361             Twinax 361             Fiber 361     Bandwidth 362     OS and Application Support 363     Supported Storage Devices and Protocols 363     Planning for Redundancy 364         Power Supply Redundancy 364         I/O Redundancy 365         Ethernet Interfaces Redundancy 365         Fibre Channel Interfaces Redundancy 367 Bibliography 369     PCI Express 369     IEEE 802.3 369     Improvements to Ethernet 369     IEEE 802.1 Activities 369     FCoE 370     TRILL 370     Virtualization 370     Memory Subsystem 371     Intel® Processors 371     Data Centers 372     Green 372     Cloud Computing 372 Glossary 373 TOC, 9781587141935, 5/10/10