With ever-increasing demand on data centers, vendors started focusing on different aspects of server and networking hardware consolidation; however, most of the ad hoc solutions were based upon existing products that were not designed from the ground up for integration from the consolidation perspective and failed to address the requirements of a data center as a whole. Hence, the management of these amalgamated solutions was a nightmare for the IT administrator.

Cisco entered the blade server market with a holistic approach to blade server design. With a strong background in networking and storage products, Cisco developed a cohesive solution consolidating compute, network, and storage connectivity components along with centralized management of these resources. The purpose of Cisco UCS is to reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) and improve manageability, scalability, and flexibility.

Cisco introduced the idea of stateless computing with its blade server design. Cisco blade servers do not need any initial configuration. Blade identity UUID, NICs, MAC addresses, storage WWN numbers, firmware, and BIOS settings are all abstracted from Unified Computing System Manager (UCSM), the management software running on the Fabric Interconnects.

Time for provisioning servers dramatically improves, as the servers can be provisioned using UCSM software even before they are physically available. Once the server is physically installed, it will abstract its identity from UCSM. Using server configuration templates, it is possible to create a server template once and apply it on hundreds of servers.

Replacing servers also becomes very easy. Since the servers are stateless, as soon as a replacement server is installed, it will abstract all the configuration of the old server from the associated service profile and will be available for use. Servers can also be easily migrated for different roles and workloads.

Virtualization in the form of modern bare-metal hypervisors is a major breakthrough for the optimal utilization of computational resources. The Cisco UCS solution supports all major hypervisor platforms, including VMware ESX/ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, and Citrix XenServer. Support and integration with VMware vSphere is very strong. UCSM can be integrated with vCenter to abstract and manage features at the individual virtual machine (VM) level. Leveraging the benefits of virtualization and increasing the density of physical servers, UCS can scale up to thousands of VMs.

Cisco UCS servers are available in two categories: B-Series blade servers and C-Series rack-mount servers. Both form factors are designed using the same industry-standard components and can address different computational requirements. Both B-series blade servers and C-Series rack-mount servers are designed using Intel® Xeon® CPUs. B-series servers are managed through UCSM, whereas C-Series servers can either be individually managed or can be integrated to UCSM.

Cisco also introduced patented extended memory technology for two CPU socket servers to increase the total amount of memory support, which could be more than double the amount of memory as compared to the industry standard for two-socket servers. Virtualized workloads can leverage this extra memory to support an even greater density of virtual machines in a reduced physical footprint, thus resulting in reduced capital expenditure (CAPEX) and operational expenditure (OPEX) costs. Extended memory technology is available in both B-Series blade servers and C-Series rack-mount servers.

Cisco has introduced native end-to-end 40 Gig support in the third-generation of UCS. With high-density 40 Gig ports in Fabric Interconnects and Fabric Extenders with 80 Gig Virtual Interface Cards. The following are the major changes:

• Cisco UCS 6300 Series Fabric Interconnects: These provide 40 Gig Ethernet/FCoE connectivity to upstream network switches and downstream to Cisco UCS B-Series servers and 4, 8, and 16 Gig native Fibre Channel connectivity to upstream storage switches with the 6332-16UP Fabric Interconnect Series
• Cisco UCS 2304 Fabric Extenders: These provide up to 160 Gig throughput to each Fabric Interconnect with 4x40 Gig uplink ports and 32x10 Gig backend ports to connect blade servers inside the chassis, totaling 320 Gig throughput to each chassis with two Fabric Extenders
• Cisco UCS Virtual Interface Card (VIC) 1300: This provides up to 80 Gig network throughput to a blade server with the correct combination of hardware
• Cisco Nexus 2348UPQ 10GE Fabric Extenders: These provide 6x40 Gig ports of upstream connectivity and downstream connectivity to C-Series rack servers

Cisco UCS consists of modular components that work together to provide a comprehensive solution that unifies compute, network, and storage technologies. Cisco UCS consists of the following components:

• Fabric Interconnects
• Blade server chassis
• Blade servers
• Rack-mount servers
• IOM modules and Fabric Extenders
• Mezzanine cards for network and storage connectivity
• Unified Computing System Manager

Here is a diagram of the Unified Computing System architecture:

In this chapter, we will go into the details of various UCS components; we'll focus on their physical specifications and installation in the subsequent sections.

The Fabric Interconnect (FI) is the core component of a UCS solution, providing network, storage, and unified management capabilities to servers. Fabric Interconnects are typically configured as highly available clustered pairs in production environments and provide active-active data traffic. A single FI-based design is also possible for proof of concept (POC) but not recommended for a production environment. Fabric Interconnects provide the following two capabilities:

• Network connectivity to both LAN and SAN
• UCS infrastructure management through embedded management software UCSM for both hardware and software management

With Gen 3 UCS hardware, Cisco has introduced a new series of Fabric Interconnects, Cisco UCS Fabric Interconnect 6300. This generation has been upgraded from the earlier 10 GbE-port model to a high-density 40 GbE-port model with 2.56 Tbps throughput. At the time of writing this, the customer can still select the Cisco UCS Fabric Interconnect 6200 series from the second-generation to go with the 10 Gig unified port model. The first-generation Cisco UCS Fabric Interconnect 6100 series has reached end of life and will not be supported.

The core functionality is the same in all the generations, with a difference in the number of physical ports, and can be upgraded to the latest UCSM software.

Fabric Interconnects provide converged ports. Converged means that depending on physical SFP and Fabric Interconnect software configuration, each port can be configured as an Ethernet port, an FCoE, or an FC port.

In production, Fabric Interconnects are deployed in clustered pairs to provide high availability. A Cisco-supported implementation requires that clustered Fabric Interconnects be identical. The only scenario for having different Fabric Interconnects in a cluster is during a cluster upgrade.

The Gen 3 Fabric Interconnect comes in two models: UCS FI 6332, which is 32-port 40 Gig Ethernet/FCoE, and UCS FI 6332-16UP, which comes with 16 unified ports to support 1/10 Gig Ethernet/FCoE or 4, 8, and 16 Gig native Fibre Channel. The Fabric Interconnect is a top-of-rack (ToR) switch and provides 10 Gig/40 Gig LAN connectivity northbound, where 40 Gig I/O module connectivity southbound.

The Gen 2 Fabric Interconnect comes in two models: UCS FI 6248UP, which has 32 fixed ports and 16 ports with an expansion module, and UCS FI 6296UP, which has 48 fixed ports and 48 ports with three expansion modules (16 ports per expansion module). Both models provide unified ports that can be changed to any mode through a software configuration change.

Cisco 6332 is a 1U device with a maximum of 32 fixed ports with 2.56 Tbps throughput. The 32 ports support 10/40 Gig Ethernet/FCoE connectivity and don't support native Fibre Channel connectivity to a SAN switch. The fixed ports can be configured as 10 Gig with breakout cables to connect with a 10 Gig infrastructure but the last six 40 Gig at the Fabric Interconnect do not support breaking out and can be used only as 40 Gig network uplink ports:

Its specifications are as follows:

• A maximum of 20 blade server chassis per UCS domain
• Fabric throughput of 2.56 Tbps
• 40 Gig ports providing at most 98x10 Gig ports with breakout cables
• Default 8-port license

Cisco 6332-16UP is a 1U device with a maximum of 40 fixed ports with 2.46 Tbps throughput. 24 ports support 40 Gig Ethernet/FCoE, and the remaining 16 support 1/10 Gig Ethernet/FCoE or 1/4/8/16 Gig Fibre Channel. The model can provide native Fibre Channel support to the FC infrastructure. Like the previous model, this model's fixed ports can be configured as 10 Gig with breakout cables to connect with a 10 Gig infrastructure, but the last six 40 Gig ports at the Fabric Interconnect do not support breaking out and can be used only as 40 Gig network uplink ports.

Its specifications are as follows:

• A maximum of 20 blade-server chassis per UCS domain
• Fabric throughput of 2.46 Tbps
• 24-port base unit with one expansion slot, which can provide 16 extra ports
• 40 Gig ports providing a maximum of 72x10 Gig ports with breakout cables
• Default 12-port license (four from fixed ports and eight from an expansion module)

The Cisco 6248UP is a 1U device with a maximum of 48 converged ports. Ports can be configured as 1 Gig Ethernet, 10 Gig Ethernet, 10 Gig/FCoE, and 2/4/8 Gig Fibre Channel.

The specifications of the 6248UP are as follows:

• A maximum of 20 blade-server chassis per UCS domain
• Fabric throughput of 960 Gbps
• 32-port base unit with one expansion slot, which can provide 16 extra ports

The Cisco 6296UP is a 2U device with a maximum of 96 converged ports. The ports can be configured as 1 Gig Ethernet, 10 Gig Ethernet, 10 Gig/FCoE, and 2/4/8 Gig Fibre Channel.

The specifications of the 6296UP are as follows:

• A maximum of 20 blade-server chassis per UCS domain
• Fabric throughput of 1920 Gbps
• 48-port base unit with three expansion slots, which can provide 48 extra ports

Fabric Extenders (FEX) modules are also known as IO Modules (IOMs). These modules serve as line cards to the Fabric Interconnects, in the same way as the Nexus series switches' remote line cards. IOMs also provide interface connections to blade servers. IOMs multiplex data from blade servers and provide this data to Fabric Interconnects and do the same in the reverse direction. In production environments, IOMs are always used in pairs to provide redundancy and failover.

Apart from data transfer between chassis and Fabric Interconnects, IOMs provide two other functions:

• Chassis Management Controller (CMC): This monitors chassis components, such as fan units, power supplies, and chassis temperature. It also reads chassis components' identification data and detects the insertion and removal of blade servers.
• Chassis Management Switch (CMS): This provides fast Ethernet links to embedded Cisco Integrated Management Controller (CIMC) instances on blade servers for KVM access, serial over LAN (SoL) access, and Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) data to travel from individual blades to FIs for monitoring and management purposes.

The following is a diagram of the Cisco UCS Fabric Extender (IO Module):

The Cisco UCS 2304 Fabric Extender is third-generation hardware and provides native 40 Gig Ethernet/FCoE uplinks to the Fabric Interconnect 6300 series. It includes 4x40 Gig Network Interfaces (NIFs) and 32x10 Gig backend ports to blade servers.

The specifications of the 2304XP are as follows:

• 4x40 Gbps fabric ports for connecting to the Fabric Interconnect
• 32x10 Gbps server-facing ports with FCoE
• 160 Gbps throughput

The Cisco UCS 2208XP Fabric Extender is second-generation hardware and provides 10 Gig Ethernet/FCoE uplinks to the Fabric Interconnect 6200/6300 series. It includes 8x10 Gig network interfaces and 32x10 Gig backend ports to blade servers.

Its specifications are as follows:

• 8x10 Gbps fabric ports for connecting to the Fabric Interconnect
• 32x10 Gbps server-facing ports with FCoE
• 80 Gbps throughput

The Cisco UCS 2204 Fabric Extender is second-generation hardware and provides 10 Gig Ethernet/FCoE uplinks to the Fabric Interconnect 6200/6300 series. It includes 4x10 Gig network interfaces and 32x10 Gig backend ports to blade servers.

The specifications of the 2204XP are as follows:

• 4x10 Gbps fabric ports for connecting to the Fabric Interconnect
• 16x10 Gbps server-facing ports with FCoE
• 40 Gbps throughput

The Cisco Nexus 2348UPQ 10GE Fabric Extender is third-generation hardware and provides native 40 Gig Ethernet upstream to the Fabric Interconnect 6200/6300 series and 1/10 Gig downstream connectivity to rack servers and other appliances.

The specifications of the N2248UPQ are as follows:

• 6x40 Gbps fabric ports for connecting to the Fabric Interconnect
• 48x10 Gbps server-facing ports
• 240 Gbps throughput

The Cisco 5100 series blade server chassis is a vital building block of the Cisco Unified Communication System solution. The chassis' form factor is 4U, and it can host:

• A maximum of eight half-width blade servers
• A maximum of four full-width servers

Chassis front provides the access to manage the blades insertion and removal from it:

• Eight half-width empty slots for a maximum of eight half-width blade servers with a removable divider in the middle, which can be removed for installing full-width blades
• Four slots for single power supplies, which can be configured as non-redundant, N+1 redundant, and grid redundant

Chassis back provides access to manage IOM modules, fans and power supplies:

• Two slots for IOM modules, which act as remote line cards to the Fabric Interconnects
• Eight hot-pluggable fans for cooling
• Four power supply connectors

UCS System should meet all the environmental requirements before deploying in the data center:

• The chassis requires an industry-standard four-post 19-inch rack or cabinet. It cannot be mounted into a two-post relay rack because of weight and length.
• The chassis requires 6U rack space.
• Ensure proper cooling and ventilation for the rack. Chassis airflow is front to back and should not be obstructed.
• The chassis is floor loading.

While blade servers are the dominant deployment of UCS solutions, Cisco has strategically extended its offering to include the industry-standard rack-mount form factor as well to provide users a choice against competing rack-mount server vendors such as HP, IBM, and Dell. Blade servers are categorized as B-Series servers, and rack-mount servers are categorized as C-Series servers.

Blade servers are at the heart of the UCS solution and come in various system resource configurations in terms of CPU, memory, and hard disk capacity. All blade servers are based on Intel® Xeon® processors, and there is no AMD option available. Businesses can choose from different blade configurations as required.

The B200 series is a half-width blade server and is in the third-generation of UCS hardware. The B200 M4 supports the latest Intel® Xeon® E5 v3 or v4 processor family, while B200 M3 supports the Intel® Xeon® E5-2500 or E5-2600 v1 or v2 processor family.

The specifications of the latest B200 M3/M4 server are as follows:

• Two Intel® Xeon® E5-2600 v3 or v4 processor family CPUs for B200 M4 and Intel® Xeon® E5-2500 or E5-2600 v2 processor family CPUs for B200 M3.
• A maximum of 1.5 TB total memory capacity (using 64 GB DIMMs). Total memory slots are 24.
• Two drive bays for SAS/SATA/SSD internal hard drives for up to 2 TB maximum storage capacity with built-in RAID 0 and 1 controller
• Up to 80 GB I/O throughput with supported mezzanine card

A B200 series entry-level blade server is the most deployed blade server and is an excellent choice for virtualization, web server farms, distributed databases, and CRM applications.

The B260 M4 series server is a full-width blade server with the power of Intel® Xeon® E7 series processor family CPUs.

These are its specifications:

• Two Intel® Xeon® E7 v2, v3, or v4 processor family CPUs
• A maximum of 3 TB total memory capacity with total 48 memory slots
• Two drives bays for SAS/SATA/SSD internal hard drives
• Up to 160 GB I/O throughput with supported mezzanine card

The B260 series server is an excellent choice for mission-critical and distributed workload with its latest addition of Intel® Xeon® E7 processors.

The B420 M3/M4 series server is a full-width blade server. The B420 M3/M4 series is based on an Intel® Xeon® E5 series processor.

The following are the specifications of the B420 M3/M4 servers:

• Four Intel® Xeon® E5-4600 v3 or v4 for the B420 M4 and v2 for B420 M3
• A maximum of 3 TB total memory capacity with total 48 memory slots
• Two drive bays for SAS/SATA/SSD internal hard drives with an optional 2 GB flash-backed write cache
• Up to 160 GB I/O throughput with supported mezzanine card

B420 M3/M4 is full width blade server and can be best fit for enterprise performance and scalable architecture such as VDI, ERP and CRM applications.

The B460 M4 series server is a dual full-width blade server and combine the power of two B260 M4 servers with four sockets.

These are its specifications:

• Four Intel® Xeon® E7 v2, E7 v3, or E7 v4 processor family CPUs
• A maximum of 6 TB total memory capacity with total 96 memory slots
• Four drives bays for SAS/SATA/SSD internal hard drives
• Up to 320 GB I/O throughput with supported mezzanine card

UCS C-Series servers are available in industry-standard rack-mount form factor. Like B-Series blade servers, these servers are also based on Intel® Xeon® processors and there is no AMD option available.

C-Series servers can be managed independently through out of band (OOB) web management interface or can be integrated to UCSM software. The embedded controller known as CIMC provides the following services:

• Remote KVM to server console
• Remote power management
• Remote virtual media for operating system installation
• Industry standard IPMI support for monitoring
• Standard SNMP traps for monitoring

Connecting and managing C-Series rack servers through UCSM requires connection through Nexus 2300/2200 series Fabric Extenders which acts as line card to the Fabric Interconnects.

C-Series servers are available in various CPU, memory, I/Om, and storage configurations to address needs of different size of organizations. Following are the specifications of these servers as available at the Cisco website.

C220 M3/M4 is a 1U form factor rack-mounted server. C220 M4 supports the latest Intel® Xeon® E5 v3 or v4 processor family while C220 M3 supports Intel® Xeon® E5-2500 or E5-2600 v2 processor family.

Specifications of the C220 M3/M4 server:

• Two Intel® Xeon® processors E5-2600 v3 or v4 product family CPUs
• Maximum of 1.5 TB total memory capacity with total 24 memory slots in M4 while 512 GB total memory capacity with total 16 memory slots in M3
• Up to eight small form factor (SFF) or four large form factor (LFF) internal storage SAS/SATA/SSD hard disks with 12.8 TB (SFF) or 16 TB (LFF) storage capacity and optional RAID controller
• 2 x 1 GB I/O ports with optional 10 GB unified fabric
• Two PCIe generation three expansion slots

C220 M3/M4 series server has great performance and density for distributed database applications and web farms.

C240 M3/M4 is 2U formed factor rack-mounted server. C240 M4 supports latest Intel® Xeon® E5 v3 processor family while C240 M3 supports Intel® Xeon® E5-2600 v2 processor family.

Specifications of the C240 M3/M4 server:

• Two Intel® Xeon® processors E5-2600 v3 product family CPUs
• Maximum of 1.5 TB total memory capacity with total 24 memory slots in M4 while 768 GB total memory capacity with total 24 memory slots in M3
• Up to 26 SFF or 12 LFF internal storage SAS/SATA/SSD hard disks with 38.4 TB (SFF) or 48 TB (LFF) storage capacity and optional RAID controller
• 2 x 1 GB I/O ports with one modular LOM
• Up to six PCIe generation three expansion slots

C240 M3/M4 series server provides great performance with storage extensibility for distributed database application and web farms.

C460 M2/M4 is 4U formed factor rack-mounted server. C460 M4 supports latest Intel® Xeon® E7-4800/8800 v2 or v3 processor family while B460 M2 supports Intel® Xeon® E7-4800/8800 v1 processor family.

Specifications of the C460 M2/M4 servers are as follows:

• Four Intel® Xeon® E7-4800/8800 v2 or v3 processor product family CPUs
• Maximum of 6 TB total memory capacity with total 96 memory slots
• Up to 12 LFF internal storage SAS/SATA/SSD hard disks with 21.6 TB (LFF) storage capacity and no RAID controller
• Two GE LAN on motherboard I/O ports with optional two 10 GB unified fabric ports
• 10 PCIe generation three expansion slots with optional LSI MegaRAID controller in the eleventh slot

The C460 M2/M4 series server provides exceptional computational resources for business critical applications, such as large databases both in bare metal and virtualized environments.

A huge variety of mezzanine adapters, also known as Virtual Interface Cards (VICs), is available from Cisco for both B-Series blade servers and C-Series rack servers. Older adapters are fixed port and not optimized for contemporary virtualized server environments. There are some older third-party network cards also available as an option. Newer third-generation adapters are optimized for virtualization and can provide 256 dynamic virtual adapters. The number of virtual adapters is dependent on the VIC model. These virtual adapters can be configured as Ethernet (vNIC) or Fibre Channel (vHBA) devices. All virtualization-optimized VICs also support VM-FEX technology. Our focus will be on the mezzanine adapters, which are virtualization optimized.

VICs are available in the form factor of a mezzanine card. All new VICs provide dynamic virtual vNIC or vHBA interfaces for server-side connectivity. The latest Cisco 1300 VIC series can only support UCS 6200 and 6300 series Fabric Interconnects, whereas the Cisco 1200 VIC series can support UCS 6200 and 6100 series. In addition, 1300 series VICs support PCIe Gen 3.0 for greater bandwidth with the network offload support of NVGRE and VXLAN for enhanced performance and can create 256 NICs or HBAs without requiring SR-IOV support from hypervisors or operating systems.

The specifications of VIC 1380 are as follows:

• 256 dynamic vNICs (Ethernet) or vHBAs (Fibre Channel) interfaces
• VM-FEX support for virtualized environments
• Hardware failover without OS driver
• 80 GB network throughput
• Mezzanine form factor
• Compatibility with UCS M3 and M4 blade servers

The specifications of the VIC 1340 are as follows:

• 256 dynamic vNIC (Ethernet) or vHBA (Fibre Channel) interfaces
• VM-FEX support for virtualized environments
• Hardware failover without OS driver
• 40-80 GB network throughput
• Modular LOM form factor
• Compatibility with UCS M3 and M4 blade servers.

The specifications of the VIC 1280 are:

• 256 dynamic vNIC (Ethernet) or vHBA (Fibre Channel) interfaces
• VM-FEX support for virtualized environments
• Hardware failover without OS driver
• 80 GB network throughput
• Mezzanine form factor
• Compatibility with UCS M2 (B230, B440) and all M3 blade servers

The specifications of the VIC 1240 are as follows:

• 256 dynamic vNIC (Ethernet) or vHBA (Fibre Channel) interfaces
• VM-FEX support for virtualized environments
• Hardware failover without OS driver
• 40 GB network throughput with optional 80 GB throughput using optional port expander in mezzanine slot
• LAN-on-motherboard form factor
• Compatibility with all M3 blade servers

VICs are available as PCIe cards. All new VICs provide dynamic virtual vNIC or vHBA interfaces for server-side connectivity.

The specifications of the VIC 1387 are as follows:

• 256 dynamic vNIC (Ethernet) or vHBA (Fibre Channel) interfaces
• VM-FEX support for virtualized environments
• Hardware failover without OS driver
• PCIe 3.0 x 8 form factor
• 80 GB network throughput
• Compatibility with UCS C220 M4, C240 M4, and 3160 rack-mount servers

The specifications of the VIC 1385 are as follows:

• 256 dynamic vNIC (Ethernet) or vHBA (Fibre Channel) interfaces
• VM-FEX support for virtualized environments
• Hardware failover without OS driver
• PCIe 3.0 x 8 form factor
• 80 GB network throughput
• Compatibility with UCS C220 M4, C240 M4, and C460 M4 rack-mount servers

The specifications of the VIC 1285 are as follows:

• 256 dynamic vNIC (Ethernet) or vHBA (Fibre Channel) interfaces
• VM-FEX support for virtualized environments
• Hardware failover without OS driver
• 2 x 40 GB QSFP network throughput
• Compatibility with UCS C22 M3, C24 M3, C220 M3, C240 M3, and C460 M4 rack-mount servers

The specifications of the VIC 1225 are as follows:

• 256 dynamic vNIC (Ethernet) or vHBA (Fibre Channel) interfaces
• VM-FEX support for virtualized environments
• Hardware failover without OS driver
• 20 GB network throughput
• Compatibility with UCS M2 (C460, C260) and all M3 rack-mount servers

To provide a solution to meet storage requirements, Cisco introduced the new C3000 family of storage-optimized UCS rack servers in 2014. A standalone server with a capacity of 360 TB can be used for any kind of data-intensive application, such as big data, Hadoop, object-oriented storage, OpenStack, and other such enterprise applications requiring higher throughput and more efficient transfer rates. This server family can be integrated with any existing B-Series, C-Series, and M-Series servers to provide them with all the required storage and backup requirements. This is an ideal solution for customers who don't want to invest in high-end storage arrays and still want to meet the business requirements. Cisco C3000 storage servers are an optimal solution for medium and large scale-out storage requirements.

Cisco UCS 3260 is the latest edition with better density, throughput, and dual-server support, whereas the earlier UCS 3160 provides the same density with a single server. These servers can be managed through CIMC like C-Series rack servers.

Cisco UCS C3206 is 4U rack server with Intel® Xeon® E5-2600 v2 processor family CPUs and up to 320 TB local storage with dual-server nodes and 4x40 Gig I/O throughput using Cisco VIC 1300. This storage can be shared across two compute nodes and provide HA solution inside the box.

Cisco UCS C3106 is a 4U rack server with Intel® Xeon® E5-2600 v2 processor family CPUs and up to 320 TB local storage with a single server node and 4x10 Gig I/O throughput.

Earlier in 2014, Cisco unleashed a new line of M-Series modular servers to meet the high-density, low-power demands of massively parallelized and cloud-scale applications. These modular servers separate the infrastructure components, such as network, storage, power, and cooling, from the compute nodes and deliver compute and memory to provide scalable and resource demanding applications. These compute nodes provide processing and memory resources directly to applications without any virtualization with unified management capabilities through UCS Manager A modular chassis and compute cartridges are the building blocks of these M-Series servers. The M4308 chassis can hold up to eight compute cartridges. Each cartridge has a single or dual CPU with two memory channels and provides two nodes in a single cartridge to support up to 16 compute nodes in a single chassis. The cartridges are hot-pluggable and can be added or removed for the system. The Cisco VIC provides connectivity to UCS Fabric Interconnects from network and management.

The UCS M-Series modular server includes the following components:

• Modular chassis M4308
• Modular compute cartridges-M2814, M1414, and M142

The M4308 modular chassis is a 2U chassis that can accommodate eight compute cartridges with two servers per cartridge, and this makes for 16 servers in a single chassis. The chassis can be connected to a pair of Cisco Fabric Interconnects, providing network, storage, and management capabilities.

The M2814 cartridge has dual-socket Intel® Xeon® E5-2600 v3 and v4 processor family CPUs with 512 GB memory. This cartridge can be used for web-scale and small, in-memory databases.

The M1414 cartridge has a single-socket Intel® Xeon® E3-1200 v3 and v4 processor family CPU with 64 GB memory. This cartridge can be used for electronic design automation and simulation.

The M142 cartridge has a single-socket Intel® Xeon® E3-1200 v3 and v4 processor family CPU with 128 GB memory. This cartridge can be used for content delivery, dedicated hosting, and financial modeling and business analytics.

Cisco brings the power of UCS in a smaller form factor for smaller business, remote, and branch offices with the UCS Mini solution, a combination of blade and rack servers with unified management provided by Cisco UCS Manager. UCS Mini is compact version with  the specialized 6324 Fabric Interconnect model embedded into the Cisco UCS blade chassis for a smaller server footprint. It provides servers, storage, network, and management capabilities similar to classic UCS. The 6324 Fabric Interconnect combines the Fabric Extender and Fabric Interconnect functions into one plugin module to provide direct connections to upstream switches. A pair of 6324 Fabric Interconnects will be directly inserted into the chassis, called the primary chassis, and provide internal connectivity to UCS blades. A Fabric Extender is not required for the primary chassis. The primary chassis can be connected to another chassis, called the secondary chassis, through a pair of 2208XP or 2204XP Fabric Extenders.

Cisco UCS Mini supports a wide variety of UCS B-Series servers, such as B200 M3, 200 M4, B420 M3, and B420 M4. These blades can be inserted into mixed form factors. UCS Mini also supports connectivity to UCS C-Series servers C220 M3, C220 M4, C240 M3 and C240M4. A maximum of seven C-Series servers can be connected to a single chassis. It can support a maximum of 20 servers with a combination of two chassis with eight half-width blades per chassis and four C-Series servers.

Here is an overview of Cisco UCS Mini:

Cisco 6324 is embedded into the Cisco UCS 5108 blade server chassis. The 6324 Fabric Interconnect integrates the functions of a Fabric Interconnect and Fabric Extender and provides LAN, SAN, and management connectivity to blade servers and rack servers with embedded UCS Manager. 1G/10G SFP+ ports will be used for external network and SAN connectivity, while 40 Gig QSPF can only be used for connecting another chassis, rack server, and storage. One or two Cisco UCS 6324 FIs can be installed in UCS Mini.

The following are the features of the 6324:

• A maximum of 20 blade/rack servers per UCS domain
• Four 1 Gig/10 Gig SFP+ unified ports
• One 40 Gig QSFP
• Fabric throughput of 500 Gbps

Cisco is the leader in integrated infrastructure, and over 50% of all integrated infrastructure deployments run on Cisco UCS servers and Nexus switches. The Gartner Magic Quadrant for integrated servers report published for the year 2015 placed Cisco as a market leader along with VCE, Oracle, and HP. Cisco's clustered Fabric Interconnect-based design provides a complete solution for converged data connectivity, blade server provisioning, and management whereas other vendors' offerings acquire the same functionality with added complexity.

Cisco UCS presented a paradigm shift for blade servers, data center design, and management to the industry. In this chapter, we acquired knowledge about the UCS solution's integral components and a broad portfolio of UCS servers to choose from various options based on application requirements.

We learned about the various available options for all UCS components, including Fabric Interconnects, blade chassis, blade servers, rack-mount servers, storage servers, modular servers, and UCS Mini.

In the next chapter, we will discuss installing UCS hardware components, including Fabric Interconnects, Fabric Extenders, chassis, blade servers, and rack servers. We'll also discuss the Cisco SingleConnect technology to connect blade and rack servers.