Introduction

Racktables version 0.20.1 has new feature support for Cisco UCS environments. Racktables is a structured and robust open-source solution for datacenter asset management, that helps document hardware assets, network addresses, space in racks and network configuration.

With this version of Racktables, a Cisco UCS Domain (Fabric Interconnects, Chassis, Servers) can be automatically discovered, inventoried, and have their corresponding objects and relationships automatically created in the Racktables database.

This version of Racktables can be downloaded from here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/racktables/files/RackTables-0.20.1.tar.gz/download

Pre-requisites

Support for these new features are predicated on the installation of the UCS Python SDK for Linux environments, which can be downloaded here: http://developer.cisco.com/web/unifiedcomputing/sdk

Configuration

Version 0.20.1 of Racktables includes a new type called "Management Interface" as a class for virtual rack objects that represent the control point for a management domain. A "Cisco UCS Domain" is sub-typed under this new class. To create a new UCS Domain, first create a new object of type "Management Interface", and then set "Cisco UCS Domain" under "Management Type".

Actions

Auto-populate UCS: Given a UCS domain, with appropriate IP address and credentials, the auto-populate function will do the following:

• discover fabric interconnects, their serial numbers and their out-of-band mgmt IP addresses
• discover chassis and their serial numbers
• discover blade-servers, their serial numbers, their models, and their associated service-profiles

In addition to discovery and autopopulation of the Racktables database, the object's relative hierarchy will be created, such that Fabric Interconnects and Chassis are "child" objects of the UCS Domain, and individual blade servers are child objects of the chassis, within which they are contained.

This version does not currently support C-series rack servers as part of auto-populate.

Cleanup UCS: This will delete object definitions in the Racktables database for the corresponding UCS domain.

Neither of these actions (Auto-populate or Cleanup) cause any configuration changes within the UCS Domain whatsoever.

Example

1. Create a new UCS Domain called "Bob", by creating an object of type "Management Interface" with the name "Bob"
2. On the Properties tab for "Bob", set the "Mgmt type" to "Cisco UCS Domain", and save the changes.
3. On the IP tab for "Bob", type "mgmt" in to the "OS interface" field, and the IP Address that defines Bob's UCS Management Domain in the "IP Address" field.
4. On the UCS tab for "Bob", enter an appropriate username/password and click on the UCS icon to Auto-populate UCS.

Upon success, after a few seconds, the UCS domain will be auto-populated. The number of populated objects will be shown in the green status bar near the top of the page.

Support

Please direct all questions and feedback to "ucs-racktables@cisco.com"