Start up of a Cisco UCS Mini

If you are looking for a high level datasheet on the Cisco UCS Mini check out my UCS Mini Anatomy Infographic.

 

This week I was able to play around with a new toy, a Cisco UCS Mini. I took some screenshots of the process of how to get it up and running after you put the power to it. Not too many people will probably see this part unless you are on the consultant side… or choose not to have someone do the initial configuration, but I thought I would share anyhow.

Before we go too far, make sure you not only have power connected but also at a minimum you will need the 1Gbps management interfaces connected to a switch as well. At this point in time you really don’t need the 4 universal ports connected to anything, but you certainly can connect them to the switches if you want to.

To get started we have to plug a standard Cisco console cable into one of the fabric interconnects in the back of the chassis. Then using putting you need to tell it that you want to do the initial config via the console or GUI. I chose GUI this time just for the heck of it.

Here is the initial information you need to enter to get the GUI config mode up and running.

fia

As it states you can now open a web browser and start the config process. Choose the Express Setup button.

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On the first fabric interconnect to be setup you will want to select Initial Setup and then click Submit.

2

Next you would want to select Enable clustering, and then enter the ip information for this fabric interconnect. Please note that in total you will still need 3 IP addresses just like a traditional UCS chassis. One for a virtual “floating” ip and one ip for each physical fabric interconnect in the chassis.

3

Once you have that information entered and submitted you can switch the console cable over to the other fabric interconnect and tell it you want to do GUI config, and what the IP you want on it.

fib

After that we are ready to launch another browser window, this time to the other FI. As you can see by the time all this happens it can already detect that it isn’t the only FI on the network. This is required so that it can pull the config from the other FI. Select Enable Clustering, and that this FI is Fabric B then enter the same admin password that you entered on the other FI.

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Next you will need to enter Fabric Interconnect B’s management IP address. after clicking submit FI-B will go out and retrieve all the other settings from FI-A and apply them. Then you are ready to use UCS Manager and finish configuring your new UCS blades.

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And there you have it, you now have a “Launch UCS Manager” button instead of an express setup button. Now you can login and start to configure your ports and your templates. I will go through that in a separate post.

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Also I have been asked a couple of times about the power draw of the Mini. And on this one the power draw was right about 1000-1200watts with 6 blades running. On 208v power it was drawing right around 5-6 amps

One other note. If you are going to put fiber channel in to this box i was surprised to learn that the assignment of FC ports is the exact opposite of the 6324’s bigger brother. Instead of your fiber channel ports being the highest numbered ports… they are the lowest numbered ports. So make sure to plug fiber channel SFP’s into ports 0 and 1, and your ethernet SFP’s or twinax into ports 3 and 4 on the 6324 fabric interconnect

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4 Responses to "Start up of a Cisco UCS Mini"

  1. Getting ready to install our first Mini and I’m wondering about the connections to our network. You mention that the 6324 has the Ethernet ports on high num ports and FC on low num ports [the opposite of the 6296…good thinking Cisco].
    Can you give me a reference for this? I did some quick checking but didn’t see anything specific about port usage on the 6324. The stuff i found was vague and seemed to say ‘anything goes’.
    Any light you could shed on this would be appreciated.

    Thx,

    -m

  2. well when you plug it in and use the slider to configure the ports it will only let you go one way 🙂 i originally plugged them in just like i would a 61xx or 62xx …. but had to recable 🙂

  3. If you look at youtube video cisco ucs mini deep dive you will see that Justin has right – I mean you must set firts ports as FC if you are going to use them!
    Thx for great article Justin btw…

    BR,
    Dragan

  4. Hi Justin,

    This is a good start for me for my UCS mini setup. Can yu let me know the next set of steps.. I dont see your second post..

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