Cisco UCS Invicta Storage – How to Provision a LUN to ESX Host

Ibrahim Quraishi — Mon, 27 Oct 2014 17:00:17 +0000

Note:

Create a default LUN and add MAP ID 0 ‘zero’ when ever you are provisioning a new ESX rule of thumb for Invicta is add a default lun lun0_ default with MAP ID 0
Keep all the LUN’s with the same MAP id on each host when provisioning them. ( Caution : If you do not give the same MAP ID for a LUN which is already provisioned and the lun has VM running. The LUN comes up as a new lun to be added to VMware so the Administrator if he is not aware of this issue may end up formating it assuming its a new LUN to provision using VMFS 5.
You need to remember that you can right click and drag and drop luns to map them.

In our environment I have created a default lun with 10 GB and never provision this on VMware, however always add this default lun first with MAP ID 0 to any ESX host you want to provision. Login to the invicta with admin or superuser account.

Step 1: Creating a LUN

Click on LUN Configuration and LUNs and Click on Create LUN

As I have mentioned in the Notes at the top that we need to first create a default lun which is what I am creating below. just fill in the details I call it lun0_default

The size of this lun can even be 1 GB as you are not going to use this lun . I have put 10 GB a I have 65 TB of thin provisioned disk and I am not going to provision this lun its just what is recommended by Cisco documentation to have a default lun 0 provisioned on each host with MAP ID 0 I have created another LUN of 1 TB calling it lun1 as shown below

Step 2. Adding a Host Initiator Group

Click on LUN Configuration and Initiator Groups and Click on Create New Group

Give the server name or if you have 10 esx host to provision the full storage you can call the group and add all the iqn numbers there. – click on Create Group

After the group is created you will find it as shown below, you can right click and see the options you can perform. We need to Add Initiator to this group. In this case I am going to add only one esx host. Copy the iqn number of from the esx host and add it.

To get the IQN if you are using the iSCSI initiator you can go to the host Click on Configuration tab and click on Storage Aadapters and right click and create iscsi adapter. Copy the IQN number.

You will also need to add the iSCSI target ( Invicta iSCSI target) in the Dynamic Discovery tab

Once you get the IQN number copy the IQN number and past it in the WWPN/IQN field below and then you should be ready to provision LUNS.

It will look like this

Step 3: Provisioning LUNS to the ESX Host

To map a LUN right click the esx-01 Initiator Group you have just added and select the second option Map/Unmap Luns

This will take you to a next screen where you will see Avalable LUNs to be added at the bottom and provisioned luns on the top as shown below:

As I have mentioned in the Note that we can drag and drop luns you can select lun0_default and prop it on the top space to provision it. At this point it will automatically assign the lun0_defualt lun the MAP ID 0 . Click Create

Always add the default lun in my example lun0_default first to every esx host or Initiator Group and give it MAP ID 0, remember this is recommended by Cisco. After adding this you can go ahead and add any number of map id however remember to keep the MAP id unique for each lun to avoid problems with lun coming up as unformatted. So this is how you will find after provisioning both the luns keep in mind to have the same lun number and map id number to keep it simple as shown below:

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Cisco UCS Firmware Overview

Ibrahim Quraishi — Wed, 03 Sep 2014 20:50:01 +0000

Cisco UCS FlexFlash Configuration of Secure Digital (SD) Card So, for the newbee to Cisco UCS, its confusing about the firmware. In this post I am trying to clarify few aspects of this, feel free to post comment below if you have any questions and I will get back to you. The CISCO UCS firmware is bundled into two packages as given below: 1. Infrastructure Firmware In Infrastructure Software firmware we update the firmware of the following

Cisco UCS Manager software
Kernel and system firmware for the fabric interconnects
I/O module firmware

2. Server Firmware Cisco UCS B-Series Blade Server Software Bundle

CIMC firmware
BIOS firmware
Adapter firmware
Board controller firmware
Third-party firmware images required by the new server

This also includes the firmware of Adapter, BIOS, FC Adapters, HBA Option ROM, Storage, Controller, Local Disk Cisco UCS C-Series Rack-Mount UCS-Managed Server Software

CIMC firmware
BIOS firmware
Adapter firmware
Board controller firmware
Third-party firmware images required by the new server

As most of you might be aware the UCS manager is the GUI Java based which allows you to fully manage the CISCO Unified Computing System. Note I have noticed that the Java version 7 update 40 is only compatible with the UCS Manager. So, where does the UCS Manager run ? This was one of my first questions, Well the Software of the UCS Manager runs on the FI ( Fabric Interconnect 62xx) as we have a pair of Fabric Interconnect it has got resilience. The UCS System is designed to be highly scalable and available, so upgrading the firmware should not bring any outage to the environment. However Cisco still suggests to arrange a Change windows and get this done out of hours or the quite period of your business. This UCS Manager is bundled in the Infrastructure Firmware Software along with the Kernal update of the FI which is the NXOS, Finally we have the I/O Module firmware which is a part of the Infrastructure firmware software too. The Other Bundle is the Server Firmware which has the firmware for BIOS, the Blades, Adapter, Board controller etc. If you want to learn more about the process of doing a Firmware update please checkout my link CISCO UCS Firmware Update Process Hope this information is useful, feel free to comment.]]>

CISCO – AgileOps

Cisco UCS Invicta Storage – How to Provision a LUN to ESX Host

Cisco UCS Firmware Overview