New Training: Identify Cisco UCS and MDS Hardware

In this 13-video skill, CBT Nuggets trainer Jeff Kish covers the products and benefits of the Cisco UCS and MDS portfolio. Learn how to identify UCS Manager, fabric interconnects, and MDS switches. Gain an understanding of a blade server chassis, B-Series server, C-Series server, S-Series server, and E-Series server. Watch this new Cisco training.

Watch the full course: Cisco CCT Data Center

This training includes:

• 13 videos

• 1.3 hours of training

You’ll learn these topics in this skill:

• Introducing UCS and MDS Hardware

• UCS Components

• UCS Blade Server Chassis

• UCS Fabric Interconnects

• UCS Manager

• UCS B-Series Blade Servers

• UCS C-Series Rack Servers

• UCS S-Series Servers

• UCS E-Series Servers

• UCS Network Cards

• MDS Family of Switches

• MDS 9700 Modules

• Review and Quiz

The Hardware Components Of Cisco's UCS

The Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) is a single, cohesive system designed to unify the computer, network, and storage infrastructure of IT systems. The UCS is comprised of various components to offer a view of a single system. Those components consist of 5 parts:

• Fabric Interconnects

• Fabric Extenders

• Blade Chassis

• Blade Servers

• Network Adapters

The network adapters are built upon the mezzanine card form factor. Each network adapter consists of two unified fabric connections to each of the two fabric extender slots.

The blade servers are based on the x86 architecture and support Microsoft Windows, Red Hat Linux, variants of Unix, and virtualization software such as ESXi.

The blade chassis is a 6RU form factor size and is a logical part of the fabric interconnect. It provides a single coherent management domain.

A fabric extender is an appliance that removes the need for independently managed blade chassis switches installed in the chassis it is installed in.

The fabric interconnects are the series of switches installed in the chassis.

Each component of the UCS can be configured and managed through a unified application called the UCS manager.