Cisco Cisco UCS B200 M1 Blade Server Libro bianco
A Principled Technologies test report 3
SERVER PERFORMANCE: LOREM IPSUM DOLOR
SIT AMET CONSETETUR
SIT AMET CONSETETUR
Migrate server identities and data access 34 percent faster with
Cisco UCS and with 83 percent fewer steps than HP
Cisco UCS and with 83 percent fewer steps than HP
contains detailed information about the server, such as Fibre and NIC addresses, boot
order, and other configuration information. The Cisco UCS solution leverages Cisco UCS
Manager Service Profiles, which coordinates and automates element management at
every layer of the hardware stack, including RAID levels, BIOS settings, firmware
revisions, VLAN and VSAN network settings, QoS, and data center connectivity. You can
easily transfer a Service Profile (a server identity) from one server to another, and UCS
automatically configures the new server. Because a Service Profile is associated with a
single physical server, when the service profile (identity) is transferred all server identity
parameters adhere. There is no danger that the old and new server will be in contention
for UUID, MAC address, WWPN, etc., since these settings are part of the Service Profile.
It took only six steps to initiate the UCS migration process, taking the UCS B200
M3 Blade Server's identity and transferring it to UCS C240 M3 rack server. There were
no additional steps required and the C240 M3 was set up and booted to the VMware
ESXi instance with full data ownership and access, with no need for more user
interaction.
HP also offers profiles, called server profiles, to the servers inside the HP
BladeSystem c7000 Enclosure with HP Virtual Connect Manager (VCM). VCM works with
HP Virtual Connect FlexFabric 10 Gb/24-port modules that are installed into the chassis.
With VCM, you can save a server configuration and move some of the setting between
the HP ProLiant server blades. However, the profile (identity) cannot be copied or
moved outside of a c7000 enclosure to a rack server. This means that the technician
must manually configure the rack server with required configuration settings during the
migration (including data ownership if necessary).
Important considerations
While moving server configuration settings such as BIOS and firmware are
important during a migration, an additional critical component is the server’s interaction
with the external network controllers and access rights and control over the associated
data. Both Fibre storage controllers and network cards have unique addresses. A Fibre
card has a WWPN address and a network card has a MAC address. These unique
addresses must be configured for any server to enable communication. For example, a
SAN uses an initiator based off the Fibre card WWPN address. The initiator tells the
storage which card is accessing it. These initiators are assigned to a storage logical unit
number (LUN) so the server can access its specific data store. If a server with a different
WWPN address than already assigned to a LUN (data store) wants to access this LUN,
the technician must manually map the new address to that LUN. Network controllers
have similar issues inside the server operating system and network infrastructure.
The Cisco UCS Service Profile allows you to migrate from a blade server to rack
server (or another blade), transferring the WWPN and MAC addresses from the original