This webcast covers best practices for monitoring Cisco UCS and demonstrate Nimsoft Monitor, which provides: A comprehensive view into the status and operation of physical elements, including fans and fan modules, power supply units, fabric interconnects, IO modules, and basic environmental monitoring of blade interfaces, processors,and memory arrays Real-time views of the virtual environment ESX host and VM guest availability—views that automatically associate hosts with guest instances Pre-configured alarm and alert settings, quality of service settings, and dashboards. For more information, visit www.nimsoft.com.

1. Hints and Tips –
Monitoring Cisco UCS
Stephen Smith Lax Sakalkale
Product Marketing Product Management
Virtualization, Cloud Virtualization, Cloud
Monitoring Monitoring
Follow the conversation at #MonitorUCS Page 1
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2. Agenda
› Why Cisco UCS?
› Cisco UCS Monitoring Challenges
› Nimsoft Monitor for Cisco UCS
› Monitor the Entire Environment – Three Key Dimensions
› Cisco UCS Monitoring Best Practices:
» Setting thresholds and metrics
» Ensure consistent monitoring
» Automatic configuration of Cisco UCS monitoring
› Demo
› Q&A
Follow the conversation at #MonitorUCS Page 2
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3. Why Cisco UCS?
› 10,000 UCS customers
can’t be wrong!
› $1Billion in annual run
rate
› A turnkey converged infrastructure
solution for Cloud stacks
» Consolidates infrastructure, saves space,
power
» Base platform for both Vblock and FlexPod
systems
FlexPod
Cisco/VMware/EMC Cisco/VMware/NetApp
Follow the conversation at #MonitorUCS Page 3
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4. Monitoring Cisco UCS – New challenges
UCS Monitoring
Challenges:
› Platform successful but
complex
› Silo’d monitoring solutions
» Separate platforms for each IT
technology
» Requires expertise in multiple
disciplines
» Difficult integrations, manual
processes
› Required –
A unified approach
» Single solution
» Modular architecture
» Unified views
Follow the conversation at #MonitorUCS Page 4
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5. Nimsoft Monitor for Cisco UCS
Extending Monitor Visibility to the Full UCS Stack
Nimsoft Monitor - A turnkey
monitoring solution for UCS-
based Cloud stacks
› Discovers and monitors all physical
and
virtual components including Vblock
or FlexPod
» Server, Network, Storage, Software,
and Virtualization
» Service level and usage optimization
reporting
› Modular – No Integration Required
› Event correlation and analysis
› Customizable, roll-based dashboards
› True multi-tenant SaaS delivery
› Usage-based metering and billing
› OOB Unified Dashboards
Follow the conversation at #MonitorUCS Page 5
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6. Best Practice
Monitor The Entire Environment
Three Key Dimensions:
› Network + Compute
» Physical and Virtual
› Configuration
» Internal components / configuration
› Context
» Converged Infrastructure stacks – FlexPod, Vblock
Follow the conversation at #MonitorUCS Page 6
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7. Best Practice
Set Appropriate Thresholds
› Set thresholds appropriate to usage
» Baseline current usage
- Check typical growth rates
- Set threshold times and exceptions
› Best practice thresholds
» Use the “Top Ten” / “Bottom Ten”
» Alarms for growth rates –
Not just thresholds
- Physical CPU/Memory/Disk/Network use
- Alarm on Rate, not just threshold
» Use % measures as standard
- Will still reflect meaningful data even if resized
» Set alarms for minimum available %
- Long enough time to correct the problem when usage grows
disproportionately
» Physical performance and capacity
- By platform component
Physical CPU, I/O (read/write performance), network, memory
Follow the conversation at #MonitorUCS Page 7
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8. Best Practice
Ensure Consistent Monitoring in Elastic Env.
› Auto-configuration
» Auto-apply to existing elements
› Auto-monitoring
» Auto-apply to new elements
› Nimsoft Templates
» Policies for monitoring
» Transportable to other instances,
or applicable within auto-configs
or auto-monitors
› Key metrics
» Nimsoft includes best practices in
the Templates
» Templates are included with probes
Follow the conversation at #MonitorUCS Page 8
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9. Cisco UCS Related List Views
Automatically display the status
of new elements
» Virtualization Environment
» Chassis
» Chassis fan module
» Chassis fans
» Power supply units
» IO modules
» Blade servers
» Blade server adaptor units
» Blade server memory arrays
» Blade server processors
» Blade server interface cards
» Fabric interconnect fans
» Fabric interconnect power supplies
» Fabric interconnect IO modules and
vethernet ports
» Fabric interconnect IO module fibre
channel ports
» Fabric interconnect local storage and
dynamic counters
» Fabric interconnect
Follow the conversation at #MonitorUCS Page 9
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10. Demo
Auto Discovery of UCS Environments
Delivering UCS Monitoring
Follow the conversation at #MonitorUCS Page 10
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11. Nimsoft Monitor for Cisco UCS Environments
› Nimsoft - Complete single tool
» Single infrastructure and portal
» Coverage for Cisco UCS,
virtual environment, networks,
applications, services and more
» Automatically detect
configuration
and apply monitoring
» Events, alarms, performance
» Service Desk and Monitor
› Effectively, efficiently, maintain
Service Levels
» Rapidly identify & correct outages
» Proactively prevent problems
Follow the conversation at #MonitorUCS Page 11
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12. Thank You!
Interested in learning more?
Want to learn more or see a more complete demo? Contact us
and receive a free, no-commit call from a Nimsoft product
expert to discuss how Nimsoft can help you make the most of
your UCS investment.
Join us for a Nimsoft Service Desk webcast on 1/31:
http://info.nimsoft.com/nimsoft-service-desk-webcast.html
Meet the Nimsoft Team at:
• CIO Summit, Feb 9-10, Hamburg
• CloudCon Conference, Feb 13-16, Santa Clara, CA
• Pink Elephant ITSM Conf, Feb 19-22, Las Vegas
More information: http://www.nimsoft.com/solutions/nimsoft-monitor/server/cisco-ucs
Contact Nimsoft at: 408-796-3400
Q&A
Follow the conversation at #MonitorUCS Page 12
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