Cisco Unified Computing System (Cisco UCS)

The Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) is an (x86) architecture data center server platform composed of computing hardware, virtualization support, switching fabric, and management software which was introduced in the year 2009. The idea behind the system is to reduce total cost of ownership and improve scalability by integrating the different components into a cohesive platform that can be managed as a single unit. Just-In-Time deployment of resources and 1:N redundancy can be configured with UCS systems.

The computing component of the UCS is available in two versions: the B-Series (a powered chassis and full and/or half slot blade servers), and the C-series for 19-inch racks (that can be used with fabric interconnects). The compute hardware managed by the UCS Manager software on the Fabric Interconnects can be B-Series (blades), C-Series (rack mount) or a combination of the two. Both form factors use standard components, including Intel processors and DIMM memory. The servers are marketed with converged network adapter and port virtualization.

Virtualization:

Cisco UCS supports several hypervisors including VMware ESX, ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer and others. VMware Virtualization is provided through a partnership with VMware and uses a version of that company's ESXi. Unlike the VMware Workstation software, ESX and ESXi run directly on the system hardware without the need for any other software (called Bare Metal), and provide the necessary hypervisor functions to host several guest operating systems (such as Windows or Linux) on the physical server. Guest operating systems are limited to 255 GB of vRAM and 8 virtual processors in vSphere 4.x, upgraded to 1 TB of vRAM and 32 vCPUs in vSphere 5.0. Additionally, the Cisco UCS Virtual Interface Cards incorporate VM-FEX technology that gives virtual machines direct access to the hardware for improved performance and network visibility.

Networking:

The Cisco 6100 or 6200 Series switch (called a "Fabric Interconnect") provides network connectivity for the chassis; blade servers and rack servers connected to it through 10 Gigabit and Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCoE). The Fabric Interconnects is derived from the Nexus 5000 and run NX-OS as well as the UCS Manager software. The FCoE component is necessary for connection to SAN storage, since the UCS system blade servers have very little local storage capacity. Cisco currently produces the following series

•             6200 Fabric Interconnects

The Fabric Interconnect can further connect to multiple Fabric Extenders, Port Extenders using VNTag to the Fabric Interconnects, allowing up to 160 servers to be managed by one Fabric Interconnect (or two in Active-Active fail-over).