Comments on: Cisco UCS for Dummies – LAN and SAN Connectivity

By: rbrambley

rbrambley — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 21:49:00 +0000

When I wrote this post, the UCS was in it’s first release and I was attending a technical intro class. I’m sure slot has changed since then, and the active active mez ports very could be just that. Then again, I very well may have misunderstood.

Either way, it’s been over a year since I’ve been actively involved with the UCS, so thanks for pointing this out.

By: La6470

La6470 — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 19:36:00 +0000

“Without 2 FEX in a chassis only one mezzanine port will be active per card. This means fail over is not possible for half height blades and only possible in full height blades if two mezzanine cards exist – 1 active port on each card.”

– Can you lease clarify failover of what will not work? FI failover will still work. And also I think the mez ports are active-active and not active-standby.

By: Ian Erikson

Ian Erikson — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:48:18 +0000

I beleive you may have stated “end host mode” wrong. the 6120 does have a mac table, an internal only one. It does switch internal traffic.

By: Sandakaranatunga

Sandakaranatunga — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 22:39:20 +0000

do any body has connected any external end host such as netapp directly to UCS 6120.
is this possible?

By: Twitted by softchoice

Twitted by softchoice — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 05:21:32 +0000

[...] This post was Twitted by softchoice [...]

By: Twitted by marcusowens

Twitted by marcusowens — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:11:33 +0000

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By: Scott Lowe

Scott Lowe — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 19:49:19 +0000

Ah, yes–I didn't read completely. You do point out the limitation of not being able to hook both FEXs up to the same fabric interconnect. So, your point is absolutely correct–the more uplinks from each chassis, the lower the overall size of the system can grow.

Good coverage, Rich–keep it coming!

By: rbrambley

rbrambley — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 19:12:02 +0000

Brian,

UCS is about the Service Profile and Stateless compute. I have only scratched the surface on the complexity hidden and automated by the UCSM to make stateless compute possible. Since the UCSM is on the interconnects, if you turn them into switches you lose all of that plus you end up in a default config with immediate problems such as looping, etc.

Long story short is that Cisco will tell you the interconnects and FEX are not switches, and you have to rethink their value proposition.

I can't wait to see your thoughts on UCS!