Deploy Cisco UCS from Scratch - For VMware (with Nimble Storage)

[saintdle136]

Hi All,

Have been installing Nimble products for a while now, absolutely love the simplicity and performance they offer.

Anyway I deployed my first smartstack from scratch and wrote a 4 part blog series on this. After letting the various Nimble Engineers know about it, and getting some great feedback from around the web, I thought I'd share it on here as well.

Part 1 - Setting up Fabric Interconnect, and UCS Manager settings

• The hardware/software
• Cabling diagram
• Pre-Reqs
• Understanding Cisco's policy based management
• Summary of Task List
• Setting up Fabric Interconnects
• Connecting to Cisco UCS Manager

Part 2 - Configuring Connectivity & Setting up the policies and Service Profiles

• Setting up the connectivity
• Configuring the VLAN connectivity
• Setting up Port Channels
• Setting up the Appliance connectivity
• Configuring LAN policies
• Configuring VNIC Templates
• Creating Server Policies
• Building a Service Profile Template
• Deploying a Service Profile from a Template

Part 3 - Deploying ESXi via KVM onto FlashFlex (SDCard)

• Setting up the SD Cards (FlexFlash)
• Installing ESXi via KVM

Part 4 - Upgrading the Firmware

• Pre-reqs
• Getting the Firmware
• Upload firmware into UCS Manager
• Upgrading UCS Manager
• Upgrading the Fabric Interconnects
• Upgrading the Blade Servers

You can also find my blog posts regarding Nimble here.

Regards

Dean

[tonto_22105]

WOW! Lots of detail.

Just starting the read now and I will compare to my systems to look for differences.

Any config settings for the iSCSI setup on the Nimble?

[rfenton4]

Guys.... also check out SmartSetup on Infosight.... I think you may like it....