UCS on myvirtualcloud.net

The Right Hardware for a 10K VDI solution

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 09:43:00 +0000

I have been involved in many VDI designs over the past years, and recently I have been involved in a design and architecture for a 10,000 user VDI solution. I thought it would be interesting to share here the considerations and decisions that goes behind hardware definition for such a large project.

APAC Virtualisation Podcast (Cisco UCS with Steve Chambers) – Wed 17/3

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 21:04:00 +0000

This week we have a special guest – the famous Steve Chamber from Cisco and viewyonder.com - to present, talk and discuss Cisco UCS (Unified Computing System) platform and how it can leverage your infrastructure and processes.

The broadcast is via TALKSHOE.com.

APAC Virtualisation Podcast (Cisco UCS) – Wed 3/3/10 @ 9pm SYD

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 12:22:00 +0000

This week we have a special guest – Steve Chamber from Cisco and owner of viewyonder.com - to present, talk and discuss the Cisco UCS platform and how it can leverage your virtualisation infrastructure and processes.

The broadcast is via TALKSHOE.com.

UCS and UCSM Basics

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 22:09:54 +0000

I had this post pre-written from a while ago and was not going to publish it, but as people still ask me about UCS I decided to publish it. In few words, UCS is a BladeCenter chassis that integrates compute, networking and Storage (FCoE) at backplane level whilst adding management capabilities through UCSM (USC Manager).

CPOC – Customer Proof of Concept

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 10:41:00 +0000

Have you ever been to one of the Cisco Customer Proof of Concept (CPOC)? If you like fridges you will enjoy it. This is the one located in Sydney.

The video is a bit shaky but you can get the idea - several corridors like this one and if you pay attention you will see two Cisco Nexus 7000 Series and four UCS chassis fully populated. The UCS kits were deployed by me but shame on me I recorded the video with them turned off.

Additional facts or tips on Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS)

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 06:04:00 +0000

Here are some additional interesting facts or tips to complete the excellent list already compiled by Rodney Haywood (@rodos).

Licence Numbers are specific to each physical system’s serial number.
Virtual Media Server only mount ISO/IMG files hosted locally in your workstation (no Map or FQDN).
KVM requires a valid block of IPs, even thou it’s for internal use only.
USC 6100’s cluster is Active/Passive and will not fallback automatically in case of a failure.
UCS 6100’s northbound connections to the network infrastructure are 10 GB only (1GB to be released).
SAN boot is only possible when using Menlo and Palo mezzanines cards.
B200 blades have single CNA adaptor. For redundancy B250 blades are required.
For cluster and console ETH connectors you will need cables without sleeves. See photo bellow.

vSphere Host Profiles Deep Dive

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:00:00 +0000

It was nice to see my blog posts about “Your Organization’s Desktop Virtualization Project – Part 1 and 2” for the first making to the Top 5 Planet V12n blog posts week 45. It was energizing and gave me confidence that I am heading in the right direction with this blog.

VCE - Virtual Computing Environment Coalition Webcast

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 07:22:00 +0000

In continuation to my previous post about the VCE Coalition watch here the webcast (Introducing the Virtual Computing Environment Coalition) with John Chambers, Joe Tucci, and Paul Maritz.

Also read Acadia, Cisco, EMC, VMware: Vblock Top Three Questions by Mark Bowker

Your Organization’s Desktop Virtualization Project – Part 2

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 06:52:00 +0000

UPDATE: Part 3 of this article is already online here

In the first part of this article I discussed the Business Drivers and Operational Benefits, Technology Savings and Operational Improvements of a properly deployed Desktop Virtualization project.

Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) coalition

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 06:34:37 +0000

Cisco Systems, EMC, and VMware today announced a joint venture to sell a new integrated data center product, dubbed vBlock.

Think of vBlock as the plug and play data-center solution, it will consist of Cisco UCS/Nexus/MDS, EMC Storage and VMware Virtualization all within a pre-designed and built rack solution - simply drop it in your data-center, plug it in and deploy virtual machines. This is not really any different than purchasing HP Servers, NetApp Storage and VMware licenses separately. Ultimately it is the same solution, but now with a single SKU that partners will be able to sell.

What does that mean to you if your organization already have a fully deployed cloud computing environment? Probably nothing.

There is no true Stateless Computing today

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:48:00 +0000

This week randomly I found out that one of the hottest topics of the IT industry at the moment “Stateless Computing” had no reference in Wikipedia. WTF, who is updating that wiki? So, for the first time I added the term to Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stateless_Computing

UCS (Unified Computing System) Key Concepts

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 01:48:01 +0000

UCS (Unified Computing System) is Cisco’s first entry into the x86 server market. This paper provides insight into both the Cisco Data Centre 3.0 strategy, and UCS, which is a key enabler to DC 3.0. It discusses products within the UCS range at a component level, such as blade and rack mount server offerings, and lastly highlights some of the larger benefits that can be gained through the pairing of x86 virtualisation and UCS technology.