Deploy A Cisco UCS System - Part 1 - From Scratch For VMware ESXi

Deploy a Cisco UCS system - Part 1 - from scratch for VMware ESXi - @Saintdle
09/11/2015 13:37
Deploy a Cisco UCS system Part 1 from scratch for

VMware ESXi
June 8, 2015Cisco, VMwareB Series, Cabling, CIsco UCS, Configuration, ESXi 6.0,
Fabric Interconnects, Nimble, UCS Manager, VMware Edit
Part 1 Setting up Fabric Interconnect, and UCS Manager settings
Part 2 Configuring Connectivity & Setting up the policies and Service Profiles
Part 3 Deploying ESXi via KVM onto FlashFlex (SDCard)
Part 4 Upgrading the Firmware
First off, huge thanks to the following posts by Rene Van Den Bedem and his Cisco
UCS installation guide.
My aim here is not to rip off his posts, but to detail the process myself and use my
own screenshots, as along the way, the setup was slightly different to Renes, such as
the configuration needed for the SD Cards, and the lack of boot from SAN
configuration.
Covered in Part 1;
The hardware/software
Cabling diagram
Pre-Reqs
Understanding Ciscos policy based management
Summary of Task List
http://www.educationalcentre.co.uk/deploy-a-cisco-ucs-system-part-1/
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Setting up Fabric Interconnects

Connecting to Cisco UCS Manager
The Hardware/Software
First off, we have the following hardware;
UCS Chassis
2 x 6248 Fabric Interconnects
4xB200M4 blades
2 x 32GB SD Cards per blade
1 x VIC 1240 per blade
1 x Nimble CS300
The deployment will be based upon;
VMware vSphere 6.0
VMware vRealise Operations Manager 6.2
Over all, we will be using the existing networking in place, which is made up of HP
Procurve devices.
Cabling Diagram
A quick diagram to show how the devices were all connected up, the connections
between the FI and the Chassis are coloured differently to define the overlapping
cables in the diagram, and do not indicate any special separate configuration.
For the Nimble, each controller should have one connection to each FI. (Please visit
this post for setting up a Nimble from scratch)
For the LAN switch connections, if you have a single stacked switch, then try to cable
so that redundant connections are across different switches in stack. If you have two
separate switches (switch stacks) then you should connect a FI per switch (switch
stack).
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Pre-Reqs
You need anyroutable IP address pool for;
KVM of Blades (one per blade)
3 x Fabric Interconnect Management (1 Floating, 2 for local)
3 x Nimble Management (1 floating/array, 2 diagnostics)
X for ESXi management
You need a nonroutable IP address pool for;
X x Nimble Data ports
X x ESXi iSCSI VMKernel Ports
Secure passwords for;
Fabric Interconnect; Admin account
Nimble Management: Admin account
ESXi hosts: Root account
Domain User (Service account) for VMware
Domain User to provide LDAP Authentication for Cisco UCS Login
A management machine which has Java and Flash installed.
Policy Based Management
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The reason why Cisco UCS is so different to traditional hardware deployments is due
to the upfront policy based management nature.
You set all your policies first, such as QOS, created your ID pools, for things such as
IP addresses, iSCSI IQNs, WWNN, Mac Addresses and so forth. You create your
virtual network interfaces that will be available on the blade servers, and which
networks they can contact via the Fabric Interconnects.
Once done, you create Service Profiles which consist of the various policies you
require, I.e policies specific for an ESXi install. You deploy this profile, and associate
your various hardware against the profile.
Should a blade server die, you can simply replace the hardware, and not have to think
about the reconfiguration needed to get it working, as all the hardware identifiers and
policies will remain and be applied.
Summary task list of configuration
In this environment Ill be covering;
setting up the fabric interconnects
Setting up AD authentication
Setting up Email Alerts
configuring the fabric interconnect ports to LAN, SAN and Chassis
setting up the chassis and blade servers initially
firmware updates
configuring the policies needed for ESXi deployment
configuring the virtual NIC templates
creating a service profile template and deploying service profiles
setting up dual SD cards in flexmode
setting up the Nimble storage for iSCSI VMFS volumes
Setting up the Fabric Interconnects
Cable up the front of your FIs, as below,
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Power on what will be Fabric A, but leave Fabric B turned off.

Connect to the fabric interconnect using serial cable, and the usual Cisco switch
settings (9600 baud, everything else should be the same if you are using putty).
Once loaded you will go through the following steps;
Enter the configuration method. (console or gui) ?: console
You have chosen to setup a new Fabric interconnect. Continue?
(y/n): y
Enforce strong password? (y/n): y
Enter and confirm your password
Is this Fabric interconnect part of a cluster (select no for
standalone)? (yes/no): yes
Enter the switch fabric (A/B): A
Enter the system name: System_Name
Physical Switch Mgmt0 IPv4 address: IP_Address
Physical Switch Mgmt0 IPv4 net mask: Subnet_Mask
IPv4 address of the default gateway: Default_Gateway
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Cluster IPv4 address: Floating_Management_IP_Address

Configure the DNS Server IPv4 address (yes/no): yes
DNS Server IPv4 address: DNS_IP_Address
Configure the default domain name? (yes/no): yes
Default domain name?: Domain_Name
You will then be given confirmation of settings you have
configured
Apply and save the configuration(select no if you want to reenter)? (yes/no): yes
Once applied you will be given a prompt similar to;
System_Name-A login:
Verify you can ping the Fabric Interconnect from your LAN.
Boot Fabric B, connect the console cable, and when prompted;
Enter the configuration method. (console or gui) ? console
Installer has detected the presence of a peer Fabric
interconnect. This Fabric interconnect will be added to the
cluster. Continue (y/n)? y
Enter the admin password for the peer Fabric interconnect:
Admin_Password
Connecting to peer Fabric interconnect done
Retrieving config from peer Fabric interconnect done
Physical Switch Mgmt0 IPv4 address: IP_Address
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You will then be given confirmation of settings you have

configured
Apply and save the configuration(select no if you want to reenter)? (yes/no): yes
Once applied you will be given a prompt similar to;
System_Name-B login:
Once done, confirm you can ping the IP address of Fabric B.
Connecting to UCS Manager
Now your ready to connect to Cisco UCS Manager, so launch a browser to
https://Floating_IP_Address
Click Launch UCS Manager, and then provide the credentials for the Admin
account.
and Viola, the UCS Manager interface is ready, well once you acknowledge the chassis
and blade servers, see the second screenshot.
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Getting around the interface

Ok, so lets look at the interface, which is made up of the following headline tabs,
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which take you into different aspects of the UCS configuration;

Equipment
Servers
LAN
SAN
VM
Admin
Equipment; is a hierarchical list that shows chassis (1 to 40) and Fabric

Interconnects (A + B), further subcomponents such as nodes (blades or rack servers)
and interface cards can be delved into further. When an object is highlighted, the
attributes are shown in the content pane (right hand side). The navigation pane has a
selection menu which can be used to show all objects available, or restrict the objects
in view.
Ive highlighted some areas of interest, such as remote KVM to a blade, the switching
mode of the FIs, and so forth.
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Servers; contains all server related components, for example, service profiles,
policies and pools. Here you can configure Organisations, Service Profiles and
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templates, pools and policies.
LAN; contains all LAN configurations; pin groups, QoS, VLANs, policies surrounding
the network configuration, pools (IP, MAC, IQN).
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SAN; Storage area network configurations; pin groups, VSANs, policies, and pools.
Ive tried to split up the different Areas of configuration under each tab, as Ive not
used the SAN configuration parts for my setup, there is little to show, however see
Renes post for a more in-depth view.
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VM; contains all the configurations needed for VM-FEX hardware switching, which
can be used on servers that have a VIC card installed. Here you configure a
connection to the VMware vCenter server, and then configure Distributed Virtual
Switches, port profiles and be able to view the VMs that run on each UCS Server.
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Admin; UCS System-wide settings are found here, setting up user access, LDAP
Authentication, Email Alerts and so forth.
So this concludes the first post, next up in part 2 we will be creating the networking
for the chassis and then creating service profiles to give our blade servers and
identity.
Regards
Dean
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Deploy A Cisco UCS System - Part 1 - From Scratch For VMware ESXi

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Deploy a Cisco UCS system - Part 1 - from scratch for VMware ESXi - @Saintdle

Deploy a Cisco UCS system Part 1 from scratch for

Setting up Fabric Interconnects

Power on what will be Fabric A, but leave Fabric B turned off.

Cluster IPv4 address: Floating_Management_IP_Address

You will then be given confirmation of settings you have

Getting around the interface

which take you into different aspects of the UCS configuration;

Equipment; is a hierarchical list that shows chassis (1 to 40) and Fabric

templates, pools and policies.

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