Learning Cisco Unified Computing System - UCS

Name: Learning Cisco Unified Computing System - UCS
Rating: 4.6 (2128 reviews)

Your guide to complete mastery over Cisco's UCS!

Highest Rated

Created byJason Lunde

Last updated 5/2017

English

English [Auto],Spanish [Auto],

What you'll learn

Identify common UCS components
Describe and configure service profiles
Describe and configure UCS pools
Describe and configure UCS policies
Connect UCS to the LAN and SAN networks
Design UCS solutions

Course content

6 sections • 55 lectures • 10h 40m total length

Introduction to the Course!9:46
The video where you meet me! We will also cover the course objectives, and talk about what you may hope to learn from this Cisco UCS ( Unified Computing Systems ) course.

Why Cisco UCS?15:28
In this short introduction we look at why we would want to use and learn Cisco's UCS solution.
Introducing the UCS Emulator!11:19
A lot of folks don't know that Cisco has graciously created a UCS emulator for us to use and practice our UCS skill on! Here I show you where to find and download, and walk through the installation with you. Please, please, please use this resource!
UCS Chassis and Blade Overview13:26
In this video we will go through the B5108 chassis hardware, as well as the blades that go into it and serve as our compute hardware!
UCS Fabric Interconnect Overview12:48
In this video we discuss the Fabric Interconnects available with the Cisco UCS solution. We will talk about the models of hardware, and the differences between the units.
UCS IOM Overview11:43
The IOM's are the small modules that plug into the back of the UCS B5108 chassis, and provide the internal connectivity to the blade servers, and the external connectivity for the chassis (up to the FI's). We will discuss the models available, and the differences with them in this video.
UCS Blade I/O Adapter Overview14:55
Have you ever wondered how the blades communicate if they don't have 'physical' ports? In this video we will discuss the various mezzanine and MLOM cards available to us!
UCS Manager Overview10:24
The UCS Manager is the brains of this system, and will allow us to configure our servers and connectivity. Watch this video to learn a little bit more about the UCS Manager, and the various reasons that you will want to use it!
Backplane Ethernet - 10GBASE-KR Overview13:27
Backplane ethernet, or 10GBASE-KR, is the technology that provides connectivity within the blade chassis, to the the blades themselves. Watch this video to learn a little bit more about it, and how the selection of your hardware affects the throughput we pass to the blades.

Bootstrapping the UCS3:37
Bootstraps the UCS fabric interconnects by configuring L1/L2 links, using a console cable, and assigning management zero and cluster IPs on the out-of-band network to initialize the UX manager.
Demo - Bootstrapping the UCS15:27
Bootstrapping the UCS fabric interconnects, configure fabric A and B via the console. Establish the cluster, set management IPs, and verify primary and subordinate roles with cluster state.
IOM Pinning Overview12:14
Demo - Connecting a UCS Chassis21:13
Fabric Interconnects Modes15:35
How UCS Uplinks Work9:51
Demo - Configuring Cisco UCS Uplinks9:50
Demo - Configuring UCS Ethernet Port-Channels11:40
Dynamic Pinning Overview11:23
Explain dynamic pinning in Cisco UCS, showing how vNICs in a service profile are pinned to fabric interconnects, and how static pin groups and fabric failover provide resilience.
Static Pinning Overview6:20
Disjoint Layer-2 Overview9:44
Demo - Configuring Disjoint Layer-218:21
Unified Ports within Cisco UCS8:52
Explore how unified ports work in Cisco UCS, including how to convert ports from Ethernet to Fibre Channel by module and port groups, manage licensing, and the reboot implications.
Demo - Configuring Unified Ports6:16
Convert ports 29–32 from ethernet to fibre channel using the unified port manager in the UCS manager, rebooting the fabric interconnect and validating transceivers after reload.
UCS Storage Networking Theory13:26
Configure service profiles with virtual HBAs and NICs for UCS storage networking. Tie vSANs to VLANs, enable fcoe or native fibre channel, and implement npiv on northbound switches.
Demo - SAN Uplink Configuration21:15
Demo - Fibre Channel Port-Channels13:37
Demo - Fibre Channel Uplink Trunking13:36
Learn how to enable fibre channel uplink trunking on UCS fabric ports to carry multiple vSANs, using tagged frames on a single port channel.
Demo - FCoE Uplink Configuration13:17
Demonstrates configuring fibre channel over ethernet uplinks between fabric interconnect A and a Nexus 5K, using unified uplinks to carry FCoE and data, enabling vSAN 11 boot from SAN.

Initial vs. Updating Templates7:28
Learn how updating templates in Cisco UCS keep service profile templates and their derived vnics synchronized, automatically propagate VLAN changes, and support easy disassociation for mass updates.
Server Pools and Policies14:06
UUID Pools (Universally Unique Identifiers)11:43
Learn how uuid suffix pools in Cisco UCS assign dynamic uuids to service profiles, decoupling identity from hardware and enabling software mobility across blades.
External MGMT IP Address Pools8:09
Configure external ip pools to auto-assign out-of-band addresses to blade smcs and service profiles, ensuring subnet alignment with fabric interconnects for scalable kvm access.
MAC Address Pools7:14
World Wide Name Pools13:25
Discover how UCS uses worldwide node names and port names with node name pools and WW X pools to assign fabric A and B addresses to service profiles and VHBAs.
WWxN Pools6:52
Learn how to configure world wide node name and world wide port name pools (ww x n pools) in UCS, including per node ports and derived pool requirements.
Configuring BIOS Policies12:14
Configuring Boot Policies (this is kind of important!)10:28
Local Disk Configuration Policies10:35
Configure local disk config policies for service profiles to dictate disk behavior, including raid one and raid five, and no local storage. Protect the configuration so raid settings persist.
Configuring Maintenance Policies6:59
Configuring Scrub Policies6:02
Configure scrub policies in Cisco UCS to wipe bios and local disks when disassociating a service profile, with options for disk, bios, and flex flash scrubbing.
Power Control Policies16:58
Network Interface Policies (LACP, Flow Control, etc)15:37
QoS System Classes12:14
QoS Policies7:21
vNIC Templates8:10
Network Control Policies11:51
LAN Connectivity Policies5:04
Create and apply LAN connectivity policies that reuse vnic templates to auto-configure ethernet interfaces in service profiles, enabling centralized VLAN updates across many profiles.
vHBA Templates and SAN Connectivity Policies4:38

Requirements

Basic understanding of x86 Architectures
Basic understanding of virtualization fundamentals (Hypervisors, virtual machines, etc...)
CCNA or equivalent knowledge
Knowledge of VLAN's and SAN's

Description

This course takes you soup-to-nuts through the UCS system. We start off answering questions surrounding "Why UCS?," and then move swiftly through the components that comprise a Cisco UCS system. Following this, we begin discussing how UCS systems are built, and how they function. As an instructor, I firmly believe in the "see then do" process, especially when it comes to technology! So my method has always been to talk about the theory surrounding a topic, and then to show you it on a live system, and thats exactly what I do with this course.

We will build out the UCS system in the exact sequence that most engineers typically deploy it. We will connect it to the LAN and SAN networks, and configure the pools and policies that make up the identities of our service profiles (the true magic behind UCS!). We will practice things like 'boot from SAN' and show you how to troubleshoot and verify everything as we go!

Who this course is for:

Pre and Post Sales Engineers
Support Engineers
Virtualization Engineers
Network Engineers

Learning Cisco Unified Computing System - UCS

What you'll learn

Explore related topics

Course content

Introduction to the Course!1 lecture • 10min

Introduction and Hardware8 lectures • 1hr 44min

Connecting UCS to the Data Center19 lectures • 3hr 56min

Configuring Pools and Policies20 lectures • 3hr 17min

Service Profiles5 lectures • 1hr 15min

UCS Management2 lectures • 19min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: