• Category Archives Fusion
  • UCS Platform Emulator Released 2.2(1bPE1) & Fusion Install Directions

    A long time ago on my blog I blogged about the UCS Emulator 2.0. Today a new release of the Platform Emulator has been released. Cisco is no longer an upstart in the blade market and is here to stay. 

    Have you always wanted to get your hands on Cisco UCS but you don’t want to buy your own, not everyone can have UCS at home or even work to test and play on. You have your chance here. I also walked through the installation on VMware Fusion on my Mac and documented below. 

    You can download the latest release on Cisco’s Communities Website here (Requires Cisco Login)

    New Hardware Features
    Cisco UCS Platform Emulator, Release 2.2(1bPE1), adds support for the following new hardware:

    • SD card – All supported Compute servers now have SD card in their slot.

    New Software Features
    Cisco UCS Platform Emulator, Release 2.2(1bPE1) includes the following new features:

    • Smartplay bundles with new bundle packs
    • Second-level boot order support for Blade and Rack servers
    • User-Space NIC (usNIC) support for Blade and Rack servers
    • Firmware download support from a local file system
    • Direct Connect Rack configuration feature in the Emulator GUI
    • SD card firmware upgrade support for supported Compute servers

    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 firwmare bundles which contain metadata only of the B-series and C-series server firmware is reduced to approximately 50 kB in size.

    Installing the OVA into VMware Fusion 6.0.2



    In VMware Fusion -> Click File -> New or Click Add in the top left window of the Virtual Machine Library
    Click More options…

    Import an existing virtual machine

     Click Choose File.. locate the .ovf file in the OVA .zip file that you downloaded

     Select the Cisco_UCS_Platform_Emulator_2.2.1bPE1.ovf file

     Select the Cisco_UCS_Platform_Emulator_2.2.1bPE1 -> Click Continue

     Choose the directory you would like to store you Virtual Machines -> Click Save

     Import will begin

    Once you start Finish the wizard. The virtual machine will start and complete an initialization sequence. Once this is complete you will have the Console Splash Page where you can either log in directly to the appliance or get the IP so you can manage it like you would a UCS Farm.

    Now that I have my UCS UI IP. I can load my browser and Launch UCS Manager

     

    I also received the following error when trying to open the UCS Manager Java Applet on my Mac (please stop using Java, its tantamount to abuse) . I was able to get around this error by applying the steps in this online blog. 

    Default username: config
    Default Password: config

    You end up with a single chassis with seven blades.

    Have fun.


  • VMware Fusion 5 New Features and Professional Version

    I have been using VMware Fusion on Macs for several years. I even deployed the Autolab on my Mac for a fully nested HA VMware solution. I need more RAM to run everything in the lab well but that is a different story. But on to the real story VMware released VMware Fusion 5 today with over 70 new features and a new Professional Version. I am pretty excited about this release as it has a lot of bang for the buck.

    Highlights

    • Optimized for Mountain Lion (latest OS release for Mac devices)
    • Windows 8 support (Microsoft’s latest desktop OS set to be released soon)
    • Optimized support for Retina Display (Sadly mine is not a Retina display)
    • Virtualized VT-X/EPT (Run 64-bit operating systems inside a nested hypervisor such as ESXi)
    • OVF Import
    • 70 Plus new Features 
    • VIX (VMware Fusion 5 Professional is now scriptable using Perl in addition to Apple Script. Automate common tasks including virtual machine management, power operations and file manipulations using the same VIX API as other VMware products.)

       

    Professional Version

    • Mass deployment features (good for Enterprises, I have seen many companies that could use this)
    •  Network Editor ( Great add, I have been using UBER Network Fuser by Nick Weaver aka @Lynxbat on Twitter for this functionality)

    The standard version of Fusion 5 is available now for $49.99, but people who bought Fusion 4 since the release of Mountain Lion can upgrade for free. There’s also a professional version ($100 for one license)

    For more information please visit the offical VMware Fusion Site