Automate Your System Administration
Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) is a programmable infrastructure component for the data center. A programmable infrastructure provides an API to the installed software stack (hypervisor, OS, application) for identification, monitoring, configuration, and control.
The API allows the system to be integrated into higher-level, data- center-wide management systems as a single, logical entity. Server, network, and I/O resources are given a personality, provisioned, and configured on demand by applying a service profile to them.
This technology supports the system's unified, model-based management.
Programmable Hardware and Network Configuration
All properties and configuration of this infrastructure are programmable through Cisco UCS Manager, including:
- MAC addresses and Universally Unique Identifiers (UUIDs)
- Firmware revisions
- BIOS and RAID controller settings
- Host Bus Adapter (HBA) and Network Interface Card (NIC) settings
- Network security
- Quality of service (QoS)
Once Cisco UCS is wired, system resources become part of a flexible pool that can be quickly used for any workload on demand. The system abstracts the personality, configuration, and connectivity of server and I/O resources, allowing administration to be automated.
Create a More Flexible IT Environment
A programmable infrastructure can support dynamic, elastic cloud computing environments without human intervention. It provides a variety of benefits, as it can:
- Manage the entire system as a single logical entity within a higher-level framework
- Automate tedious, manual, error-prone processes, while speeding deployment and reducing errors
- Increase resource utilization, which reduces total cost of ownership (TCO)
- Provide greater business agility, as resources can be repurposed on demand, instead of being dedicated to specific applications or operating environments
- Offer flexibility and scalability, supporting a pay-as-you-grow model of resource acquisition
Self-integrating and self-aware, this system automatically discovers and maintains an inventory of its components. This inventory can be used for automated discovery and integration with configuration and change management systems.