Cisco UCS Platform Emulator (2.5(1aPE1))

[jasonsha]

Cisco UCS Platform Emulator, Release 2.5(1aPE1)

The UCS Platform Emulator version 2.5(1aPE1) is a platform release that ONLY supports the UCS M-series Modular Servers

New Hardware Features

Cisco UCS Platform Emulator, Release 2.5(1aPE1), adds support for the following new hardware:
     •  New UCS Chassis - UCSME-4308 is a new chassis for modular servers which supports resource
         sharing such as adapters and storage. It has a single IOM (UCSME-4308)
     •  Compute Modular Server -Cisco SME-142-M4 Socket Server ( UCSME-142-M4)
     •  DIMM - UCS-MU-1X082RY-F
     •  Storage Disks:
          – UCS-SD240G0KS2-EV
          – UCS-SD480G0KS2-EV
          – UCS-SD960G0KS2-EV
          – UCS-SD400G0KS2-EP
          – UCS-SD800G0KS2-EP
          – UCS-SD16T12S2-EP
     •  CPUs:
          – UCS-CPU-E31220LD
          – UCS-CPU-E31240LD
          – UCS-CPU-E31275LD
     •  Storage controller - Cisco 12G SAS Modular Raid Controller (UCSME-MRAID12G)
     •  Changes to the Cisco UCS Platform Emulator VM Console
          – Modifications to the VM Console login
          – Modifications to the VM Console Options Menu
          – Modifications to the Network Settings
          – Modifications to the System Settings
          – More details added to the Status Summary display

New Software Features

Cisco UCS Platform Emulator, Release 2.5(1aPE1) includes the following new features:
     •  Templates (pre-configured cartridges with servers on the control panel) for new modular servers:
          – ME142 M4 Low
          – ME142 M4 Medium
          – ME142 M4 High
     •  New tab for modular servers
     •  Support for storage profile operations:
          – Creation of a Logical Unit Number (LUN)
          – Deletion of a LUN
          – Modification to a LUN
          – Hot Spare addition
          – Removal of Hot Spares

Known Limitations

Cisco UCS Platform Emulator, Release 2.5(1aPE1) has the following limitations:

     •  Download of stripped-down version of UCS Firmware - From UCS PE 2.2(1bPE1) onwards, only
         the stripped-down version of size less than 50 KB is available for download. The download of
         regular (non-stripped version) version is not supported anymore.
     •  Recommission and decommission - Chassis and modular server recommission and
         decommission are not supported.
     •  Domain Name Server (DNS) resolution - DNS resolution is not available for Cisco UCS Platform
         Emulator. All domain names must be resolved manually using a static IP address.
     •  Syslog - Cisco UCS Platform Emulator and Cisco UCS Manager integrated with Cisco UCS
         Platform Emulator does not produce a syslog.
     •  Data path - Cisco UCS Platform Emulator does not emulate network data flow. The software
         emulates the functions that are necessary for the management plane.
     •  XML Export in Google Chrome - The Startup Hardware Configuration user interface allows you
         to save the XML-formatted hardware configuration to a local computer. This is the client   
         computer that is running the browser. To save the file, click Export Configuration to XML File >     
         Save as… and then save the XML text to a local file. However, If you are using Google Chrome,
         you must save the file as a .txt file. If you save the file in another format such as .xml, Google
         Chrome adds unnecessary HTML tags in the saved file produces an incorrect XML format.
     •  Microsoft Internet Explorer - Microsoft Internet Explorer does not support the Cisco UCS
         Platform Emulator Model Object Browser and Start-up Inventory features. To use these features,
         you must use a Mozilla-compatible browsers such as Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome. Internet
         Explorer Version 8.0 and later supports other Cisco UCS Platform Emulator features.
     •  Cut-through interfaces - Cut-through interfaces to equipment such as IPMI and SNMP, are not
         supported. Servers in a Cisco UCS domain contain integrated management controllers (CIMCs),
         each of which supports an IPMI interface. The fabric interconnect components of Cisco UCS
         support an SNMP interface. However, because both fabric interconnects and CIMC are    
         considered to be endpoints of the Cisco UCS management system, these interfaces are cut-  
         through interfaces that bypass Cisco UCS Manager, the central management system.
     •  Serial over LAN, FTP, TFTP, Telnet -  Similarly to SNMP and IPMI interfaces, serial over LAN,
         TFTP, FTP, and Telnet access (through user-facing or management-plane-facing Ethernet
         interfaces) is not available because they bypass the management software and are considered
         cut-through access. SSH is supported only to the Cisco UCS Platform Emulator management IP
         through the config user for Cisco UCS Manager CLI access.
     •  Keyboard/Video/Mouse(KVM) -  KVM is a cut-through interface. Cisco UCS Platform Emulator
         does not support KVM because there are no physical servers attached to the emulation system  
         to which KVM could connect. Launching the KVM console does not display an error message.
     •  Emulation of high-availability failover -  No failover scenario is supported. If one management
         process dies, the other does not take over.
     •  AAA-based authentication (LDAP, RADIUS, TACACs) - In emulation mode, Cisco UCS
         Manager accepts security configuration changes, but does not enforce local or remote password
         authentication. Any username and password combination can successfully log in to the Cisco UCS
         Manager GUI with administrator privileges. If a local user is created with a role and locale, Cisco
         UCS Platform Emulator enforces role, privilege, and locale definitions for the user logging in,
         allowing an end user to test how roles, privileges, and locales function in Cisco UCS Manager.
     •  Remote monitoring(SNMP, Syslog, Call Home, Smart Call Home) - Cisco UCS Platform
         Emulator does not support remote monitoring of Cisco UCS Manager on any interface except the
         Cisco UCS Manager XML API. You can configure SNMP (traps or gets), local or remote syslog,
         Call Home, and Smart Call Home remote monitoring in Cisco UCS Platform Emulator but you
         cannot send or query data through those interfaces.
     •  Cisco UCS Manager database backup and restore - Cisco UCS Platform Emulator does not
         support full- state back up or restore configurations from within Cisco UCS Manager. If a user
         imports a system backup which consists of switch configurations such as VLAN, CallHome, and so
         on, the import operation fails.
     •  Capability catalog - Cisco UCS Platform Emulator does not support updating the capability
         catalog in Cisco UCS Manager. Cisco UCS Platform Emulator supports only the original capability
         catalog.
     •  Hardware changes - The following list describes the hardware changes:
         Cisco UCS Platform Emulator does not support adding or removing hardware, such as servers,
         chassis, I/O modules, and power supplies, dynamically in the Cisco UCS Platform Emulator
         control panel. Adding, modifying, or removing hardware in the Cisco UCS Platform Emulator
         startup hardware configuration requires you to restart the Cisco UCS Platform Emulator
         application software.

NOTE: From UCS PE 2.2(1bPE1) onwards, UCS PE supports uploading the B-Series and C-Series server firmware bundles.  Because of the large file sizes of the firmware bundles, UCS PE only supports uploading of only the stripped-down versions (attached to this document), which includes only the firmware metadata but not the actual firmware itself in the binaries.  The stripped-down version of the firmware bundles which contain metadata only of the B-series and C-series server firmware is reduced to approximately 50 kB in size.

• Download UCSPE Firmware Bundles: UCS Platform Emulator Firmware Bundles (includes firmware meta-data only)