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cisco_ucs Guide v1.3 series

Nimsoft® Monitor™

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Contents 5

Contents

Chapter 1: cisco_ucs 1.3 7

cisco_ucs configuration ................................................................................................................................................ 8

General tab ........................................................................................................................................................... 8

Advanced tab ........................................................................................................................................................ 9

Creating new group .................................................................................................................................................... 10

Creating a host Profile ................................................................................................................................................ 11

Equipment .................................................................................................................................................................. 14

Viewing History .......................................................................................................................................................... 16

Faults .......................................................................................................................................................................... 17

Pools ........................................................................................................................................................................... 18

UCS Service Profiles .................................................................................................................................................... 19

Configuring QoS ......................................................................................................................................................... 21

Using Templates ......................................................................................................................................................... 22

Adding monitors to a template ........................................................................................................................... 24

Wildcard or Fixed monitor templates ................................................................................................................ 25

AutoConfiguration ............................................................................................................................................... 26

Importing the threshold policies into template ......................................................................................................... 29

Message Pool ............................................................................................................................................................. 30

Create new message ........................................................................................................................................... 31

Appendix .................................................................................................................................................................... 31

Mapping the Fault Severity ................................................................................................................................. 31

Glossary 33


Chapter 1: cisco_ucs 1.3

This description applies to cisco_ucs probe version 1.3x

The Nimsoft cisco_ucs probe is a tool for managing the health and performance of your Unified Computing System (UCS).

The Cisco Unified Computing System is a next-generation datacentre platform that unites compute, network, storage access, and virtualization into a cohesive system designed to reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) and increase business agility.

This section contains the following topics:

Documentation Changes (see page 8) cisco_ucs configuration (see page 8) Creating new group (see page 10) Creating a host Profile (see page 11) Equipment (see page 14) Viewing History (see page 16) Faults (see page 17) Pools (see page 18) UCS Service Profiles (see page 19) Configuring QoS (see page 21) Using Templates (see page 22) Importing the threshold policies into template (see page 29) Message Pool (see page 30) Appendix (see page 31)

cisco_ucs configuration

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Documentation Changes

This table describes the version history for this document.

Version Date What's New?

1.3x October 2011 Initial Release


The probe is configured by double-clicking the probe in the Infrastructure Manager, which brings up the GUI.

Note: Nimsoft has tested cisco_ucs probe v1.2x on Windows 32-bit platform, but the probe should work fine on Linux and Solaris platforms.

Click the General Setup button to configure the probe parameters.

More Information

General tab Advanced tab

General tab

The General tab enables you to set the depth to which log details should be maintained. Move the slider to set the desired log level.



Advanced tab

The Advanced tab enables you to configure the following parameters:

Field Description

Check Interval Enter the time interval (in minutes) at which the probe will monitor the parameters of the UCS. Default is 1 minute.

Max. number of threads

Move the slider to select the maximum number of threads that will be monitored.

HTTP Timeout Enter a time period (in seconds) after which HTTP timeout will occur. Default is 60 seconds.

Creating new group

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Creating new group

By default, the probe contains a group, called the Default Group, for creating the host profiles. However, you can create more groups by clicking the Create a new group folder button.

The new group folder is added to the tree-view with a default name. You can edit the name, create sub-groups under a group, create a host profile under the group or delete the group by selecting the respective menu option in the context menu.

Creating a host Profile



To create a host profile, click Create new host profile button from the toolbar.

Profile dialog opens.

Field Description

Hostname or IP address Enter the machine name or IP address of the UCS Manager

Port Enter the port number to connect to the UCS Manager. Usually, the port number is 443 or 80

Active Select this checkbox to make the profile activate the profile

Group Select the group under which the new profile is to be created

Alarm Message Choose an alarm message from the drop-down. For more details about alarm messages, please refer section Message Pool

Description Enter a brief description for the profile

Send UCS Faults as Nimsoft Alarms

Select this checkbox if you wish to convert the UCS Faults into Nimsoft Alarms

The severity of the Fault is converted to the corresponding Nimsoft Alarm severity. The severity "mapping" might be changed using raw-configure. For more details, please refer the Appendix section.

Authentication


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Field Description

User Name and Password

Provide a valid user name and password

Authentication Message

Select an alarm message from the drop-down

Message Identification Settings

Alarm Select a source for the alarm from the drop-down. Two options are available:

Host address: Choose this option to set the IP address of the agent profile as the source for the alarm

Profile name: Choose this option to set the name of the agent profile as the source for the alarm

QoS Select a source for the QoS from the drop-down. Two options are available:

Host address: Choose this option to set the IP address of the agent profile as the source for the QoS

Profile name: Choose this option to set the name of the agent profile as the source for the QoS



After entering all the necessary details, click the Start Query button to generate the profile. The generated profile is displayed in the probe GUI.

Once the profile has been successfully created, you can drill down into the UCS and activate Alarms or QoS on the provided checkpoints.

The probe delivers QoS for state metrics as well. The states are translated into integer values based on the /Constants section in the probe cfg file.

The probe can raise an alarm if a state is equal or not equal to the threshold.

Equipment

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Equipment

Note: The "Expansion Module 2" from Cisco_ucs probe v1.1x has now been renamed to "Expansion Module 1". The slot id will still be 2.

The ports in the Fixed Module / Expansion Module(s) are grouped into the following categories, based on the "ifRole" property in the Cisco UCS Manager.

■ Server Ports

■ Unconfigured Ports

■ Uplink Ethernet Ports

■ Uplink FC Ports

Equipment


The NIC nodes display an aggregated view of bandwidth (how much bandwidth is available for the Chassis, for Uplink to VSANs etc.).

If configured, the NICs on the server blade interface cards also provide traffic metrics (number of packets sent, packets dropped, errors, etc.).

Viewing History

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Viewing History

The UCS provides a history buffer for counters.

Note: History does not apply to "states".

To view the history for items that support history, right click a counter from the grid, and from the context menu, select History option.

The following screenshot shows the history for the Speed of fan.

Faults


Faults

The Faults item displays the various faults and the relevant details such as severity, fault code, ID, the affected object, cause for the faults, last transition date and time, and a brief description of the fault.

Pools

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Pools

The Cisco UCS contains a number of ‘pools’ such as a MAC Pool (list available MAC addresses), WWNN pool, WWPN pools, etc. It is useful for the system administrators to be aware of how many of these pools are empty, how many are assigned, and so on.

The cisco_ucs probe supports the following pools. They are displayed in the treeview of the probe GUI.

■ MAC Pools

■ Server Pools

■ UUID Pools

■ WWNN Pools

■ WWPN Pools

Each pool has a ‘default’ node, apart from the other user-configured nodes as configured in the UCS.

UCS Service Profiles



The service profiles created in the Cisco UCSM are displayed in the treeview of cisco_ucs probe GUI under the UCS Service Profiles node.


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Right-clicking a service profile from the treeview opens a context-menu.

■ Choose Refresh option to update the service profile with latest changes.

■ Choose Information to view more details of the selected service profile.

Configuring QoS


Configuring QoS

The QoS node displays the configured QoS for the system.

To create a QoS, right click on the QoS node and from the context menu, select New option. QoS Definition dialog appears.

Enter the required details such as the name for QoS, group, a brief description, QoS unit and its abbreviation. Also, select a flag to specify if the QoS is Boolean or has a maximum value.

Using Templates

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Click OK. The new QoS is added to the tree-view.

Using Templates

You can create templates for monitors using the Templates node. From the tree-view, right-click on the Templates node and from the context menu, select New.

Using Templates


Template Properties dialog appears. Enter a name for the template and brief description for it.

Click OK. The new template is added to the tree-view.

You can edit or delete a template by right clicking it in the tree view and choosing the appropriate option from the context menu.

To apply a template, you can simply drag and drop the template onto new profiles.

More Information

Adding monitors to a template Wildcard or Fixed monitor templates Auto Configuration

Using Templates

24 cisco_ucs Guide

Adding monitors to a template

To add monitors to templates, first configure a set of monitors on an existing profile.

Right-click one or more of the configured monitors and from the context menu, select Add to template.

Select Template dialog appears. From the Name drop-down, select the template to which you wish to add the monitor(s). Click OK.

Note: Alternatively, you can also simply drag and drop the configured monitors onto a template item in the tree-view.

Using Templates


Wildcard or Fixed monitor templates

When you drag monitors on to a template, you can choose whether to create a wildcard template monitor or fixed template monitor.

If you create a wildcard, then on template deployment, monitors for all current instances of the specified class will be created.

A good place to start is to create a wildcard template for one of the fan-modules, and then deploy it to confirm whether monitors are created for all available fan-modules in every chassis.

After performing any of the above action, the selected monitors will be assigned to the selected template as shown in the figure below.

Using Templates

26 cisco_ucs Guide

AutoConfiguration

To create automonitors, drag and drop a metric (e.g. a fan-module metric) on to the AutoConfiguration node.

Apply and restart the probe. The icons indicate that monitors for all available metrics are created.

If a new fan-module has been added, the probe will pick it up and apply monitor. Furthermore, if a new chassis is inserted, the probe will automatically create monitors for the fan-modules inside that new chassis.

Using Templates


Static monitors and automonitors:

■ Static monitors override automonitors.

■ You can convert automonitor instances to static monitors if you want to treat a particular instance separately (e.g. set a different threshold or disable alarming). Then once you delete the static, automonitors will be created.

When you double-click an automonitor, the following message appears.

When you click Yes, the Monitor properties dialog appears.

Using Templates

28 cisco_ucs Guide

Configure the require settings as shown and click OK.

The selected automonitor now becomes a static monitor, as indicated by its icon.

Difference between wildcard templates and automonitors:

When wildcard templates are deployed, static monitors are created for the current available instances (So if you e.g. insert a new chassis, you will have to deploy the template once more in order for monitors to be created).

If you create automonitors, then the probe automatically detect new instances, and applies the configured automonitors.

Note: You may drag templates on to the AutoConfigurations node. If any fixed monitors are part of the template, then they are no longer fixed to that particular instance. This implies that from the AutoConfiguration point of view, it does not matter if you have a fixed or wildcard template monitor. All instances will automatically be monitored.

Importing the threshold policies into template


Importing the threshold policies into template

The threshold policies created in UCSM are displayed under the UCS Threshold Policies node in the treeview of cisco_ucs probe GUI.

You can import one or more existing threshold policies in to a template.

Right click one or more threshold policies and select "Add to template" context-menu. A dialog appears allowing you to select the template into which you wish to import the threshold policies.

Message Pool

30 cisco_ucs Guide

Select the required template from the drop-down and click OK.

The selected threshold policies are imported into the template.

It is a good idea to to add the templates based on thresholds-policies in autoconfiguration, so that after each interval the probe will try to detect if there are any classnames ( for example, processorErrorStats) available on any of the processors.

Message Pool

You can create alarm messages by using the Message Pool dialog.

From the toolbar, click the Message Pool Manager button.

The Message Pool window appears, displaying the currently configured alarm messages.

More Information

Create new message

Appendix


Create new message

To create a new alarm message, click the Add Message button from the Message Pool window.

Message Properties dialog appears.

Enter the necessary details such as identification name for the alarm message, message token, text for the alarm message, text to be displayed on clearing the alarm, severity (if applicable) and the subsystem string or ID.

Click OK to save the alarm message. The new alarm message is listed in the Message Pool.

Appendix

More Information

Mapping the Fault Severity

Mapping the Fault Severity

Right-click on the cisco_ucs probe in the Infrastructure Manager while holding down the SHIFT key. Select Raw Configure option from the context menu.

Appendix

32 cisco_ucs Guide

From the tree-view in left frame, select FaultSeverity.

Glossary 33

Glossary

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