Cisco Intersight: Enabling management of Cisco UCS · Cisco Intersight Server Profiles Overview • Individual Server profiles are created within the Profiles tab • Users select

Cisco Intersight: Enabling management of Cisco UCS and HyperFlex

Jeff Foster, Sr. Product Manager - UCS

BRKDCT-2088

© 2018 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Public

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• Background

• Value Proposition & Offering

• Architecture

• Device Connectors

• Security

• Getting Started

• Server Management

• API

Agenda


Edge Data Center Multi Cloud

Risk of Silos Manual Processes Limited Visibility

Operational Simplicity and Automation

Dev Ops FriendlySeamless Data Center Extension to Edge and Clouds

PrivateClouds

PartnerClouds

Public Clouds

Customer Needs

Too Many Parts, Moving Too Fast

BRKDCT-2088 5


Challenges We’re Solving Against

Distributed

Apps and IT

Physical and Virtual Sprawl,

IoT, Microservices

Traditional

Management

Building a Monster to

Manage the Monster

Human

Limitations

Scale, Speed, Complexity in Modern

Data Centers is Unmanageable

BRKDCT-2088 6


Strategy for Next-Generation Systems Management

Use the Cloud

Connect Everything

1

Analyze the

Telemetry

Create Actionable Insight

2

Combine Insight

with Automation

Have Machines

Manage Machines

3

BRKDCT-2088 7


UCS Management Simplification

Server

Tools

Network

Tools

Storage

Tools

Conventional Infrastructure

UCS Today

Silos of Manual Element Management UCS Central

Global Resource Pooling and Policy Management

UCS Director

Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Orchestration

Third Party Infrastructure

UCS Manager

Unified Element Management

Policy-Based Automation

HyperFlex Connect

Hyperconverged Management

IMC Supervisor

Policy Management and Remote vKVM

IMC

Standalone

C-Series, S-Series

Cisco UCS: Programmable Infrastructure

BRKDCT-2088 8


Simplicity

Agility

Efficiency

Scale

Intuitive

Adaptive

Automated

Semi-AutomatedManual

Hand-crafted:

Server-focused

Stateless Computing:

Policy-focused

DIY Workflows:

Infrastructure-focused

Intent-Based:

Application-focused

AI Powered:

Optimization-focused

Inflection Point:

Cloud Managed Infrastructure

ML / AI for IT Ops

Past Future

A New Era of Adaptive Systems Management

BRKDCT-2088 9

© 2018 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco PublicBRKDCT-2088

Introducing Cisco Intersight

10


SaaS Delivered

Intuitive Experience

Enhanced Support

Proactive Guidance

Secure and Extensible

Cisco Intersight Elements

BRKDCT-2088 11


Cisco Intersight: Enhanced SupportConnected TAC

Automated transmission of technical support files to the Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC) for accelerated troubleshooting

Future: Telemetry collection, issue fingerprinting, proactive alerting & remediation

BRKDCT-2088 12


Cisco Intersight: Proactive GuidanceRecommendation Engine

Compliance

Proactive Tech Support

Baselining andNotifications

FirmwareUpgrades

Alerts

BRKDCT-2088 13


Key Features in Intersight Security Architecture

Use of industry standard security protocols

Encryption of all data

Compliance with stringent Cisco InfoSec security and data handling standards

BRKDCT-2088 14


SaaS-Delivered

UCS CentralGlobal Resource Pooling and Policy Management

UCS DirectorInfrastructure-as-a-Service and Orchestration

Third Party Infrastructure

UCS Manager & IMC

Unified Element Management

Policy-Based Automation

Intersight

Continuous Feature

Integration

Rapid development, delivery and

customer feedback

SaaS/Subscription

Consumption Model

Free customers from care &

feeding of management tools and

eliminate upgrade dependencies

Eliminate the hierarchy of tools

and multiple management

appliances

Seamless ScalabilityIntersight

BRKDCT-2088 15

Intersight Architecture


MaaS

Custo

mer

Sites

Cisco Intersight(SaaS or On-Prem)

Data Center 1 Data Center 2

Branch A Branch N

Policy Based

OrchestrationAPI Driven,

DevOps Enabled

Secure and

Compliant

Connected

TACApp Store

Device Connector

Device Connector

Device Connector

Device Connector

Device ConnectorDevice

Connector

Telemetry

& Analytics

17BRKDCT-2088

Cisco Intersight: Management-as-a-Service


Control

Nodes

(Cisco DC)

Intersight Data Centers

#2

#1

Manage Anywhere, 24/7/365, Cloud Scale

BRKDCT-2088 18


Device Connector: Overview

A very light and autonomous

piece of software allowing:

• Communication with the Intersight portal,

wherever the portal is.

• Capability of inserting tasks / calls

against the infrastructure (UCS Manager,

Cisco IMC Software, HyperFlex, UCS

Director) via the pluggable / extensible

framework

Key Features

• Bundled with Firmware

• Embedded Product Feature

• Secure Communications

• Self Updated

• Autonomous Check-In

BRKDCT-2088 19


Intersight Continuous Integration and Delivery

Micro-services, DevOps, Independent Delivery, Always on, Rolling Upgrades,

Horizontal scale

Developers Micro-Services Continuous Delivery Pipelines

OperateReleaseTestBuild



BRKDCT-2088 20

Intersight Value Proposition & Offering


Intersight: Initial Release

IMC Policy Framework

HyperFlex Cloud Installer

Deployment

Fault Alerting

Platform Inventory

Dashboard

HW/FW Compatibility

FW Upgrades

Platform Compliance

Cloud Connectors

Supportability

Telemetry Data Collection

UCSM, HXDP & IMC SW

UI Launch

SaaS Subscription

Intersight

BRKDCT-2088 22

© 2018 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Public 23BRKDCT-2088

Cisco Intersight Customer Outcomes

Pervasive

Simplicity

Actionable

Intelligence

Agile

Delivery

Easy for development

and operations

Best practices to enable

proactive operations

Respond quickly to

New requests


Cisco Intersight Delivers Simplified Management

Unified Management

Single pane of glass, consistent operations

model and experience for managing all

systems and solutions

Recommendation EngineEmbedded recommendation platform with

insights sourced from across Cisco installed

base and tailored to each customer

SaaS/SubscriptionHosted management will free customers

from care/feeding of management tools and

eliminate upgrade dependencies

Enhanced Support Experience

Hosted platform allows Cisco to address issues

platform-wide and experience extends into TAC

supported platforms

ProgrammabilityEnd to end programmability with native API,

SDK’s and popular DevOps toolsets will enable

customers to consume natively

No-Impact TransitionIMC/UCSM/HX embedded connector will allow

customers to start consuming benefits without

forklift upgrade

BRKDCT-2088 24


Project Starship is now Cisco Intersight

1

2

Cisco Intersight Base live in December 2017

Cisco Intersight Base live on January 2018

Tech Preview *ucs-starship.com) accounts migrated to Intersight.com

Continued steady growth in connected devices (over 56,000!)

BRKDCT-2088 25


Cisco Intersight Packaging

Orchestration—

Adaptive Assist

Analytics—

Monitoring—

OperationsAvailable

Essentials$

Standard$$

SaaS

Telemetry Collection

Centralized Inventory

Basic Search

Cloud Connect

License ManagementBase

BRKDCT-2088 26

© 2018 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Public 27BRKDCT-2088

Cisco Intersight: Edition Comparison

Base Edition:

• Supports Cisco UCS and HyperFlex

Systems

• Global inventory, health status, and

customizable dashboard

• Tagging and basic global search

• Context-launch of element managers

• Cisco HyperFlex installation

Essentials Edition:

• All functionality of the Base Edition

• Server HCL compliance check

• Virtual Keyboard-Video-Mouse

(vKVM) launch

• UCS C-Series policy-based

configuration with Service Profiles

• Detailed inventory and firmware

management

Server Monitoring & Management Demo

Server Policies and Profiles


Cisco Intersight Server Policies Overview

• Individual Server policies are created within the policies tab

• Policies can also be created on the fly when creating a Server Profile

• Policies Include:

• Server Policies must be assigned to Server Profile before they can be associated with a server and deployed

• LDAP policy

• Serial Over LAN Policy

• NTP Policy

• BIOS Policy

• Disk Group Policy

• Storage Policy

• Network Connectivity Policy

• Virtual KVM Policy

• SMTP Policy

• SNMP Policy

• IPMI Over LAN Policy

• SSH Policy

• User Policy

• Precision Boot Order Policy

BRKDCT-2088 30


Cisco Intersight Server Profiles Overview

• Individual Server profiles are created within the Profiles tab

• Users select desired policies to include in profile

• Users can also create new policies within profile setup

• A profile can only be assigned to a single server

• Profiles can be cloned and assigned to additional endpoints

• Profiles can be exported to CSV file and tagged for better organization

• Profile summary page will show list of profiles, status and the endpoint association

BRKDCT-2088 31

Policy & Profile Demo

Firmware Demo

Cisco Intersight HyperFlex Installer


• Deploy from anywhere!

• No need for existing infrastructure or OVA setup

• Latest version always available

• Reusable policy for rapid & consistent deployment

• Simple ramp-up of large HX projects with simultaneous background deployment

• Download latest OVA from Cisco.com

• Deploy on existing infrastructure

• Run single cluster deployment

HyperFlex Installer User Experience

Intersight

BRKDCT-2088 35

Cisco HyperFlex Installer Demo

Intersight API


Extensible ArchitectureAdvanced Integrations

Cisco and 3rd Party

Infrastructure

Intersight Portal

UCS HW

Connector

(XML/REST)

(BU / Cust. / 3rd party)

Partner

Developed

Connectors

Inventory

& Alerting

OrchestrationSecurity

&

Authentication

New Connectors

Open Connector Framework

OData Restful API Example: Tools and SDK

BRKDCT-2088 38


Cisco Intersight Model Browser & Swagger SpecVersioned API Downloadable Swagger Spec

Run queries in model

browser

Search

Description

& Detail

BRKDCT-2088 39


Intersight

Single Endpoint for Management/Monitoring

Servers Network

Devices

Storage

Silos of Manual Element Management

OData Restful

API

Configuration Management/Monitoring

Servers

Servers

Storage

Storage

Network

DevicesNetwork

Devices

BRKDCT-2088 40

Cisco Intersight API Demo

Device Connectors


Intersight: UCS Software Architecture Evolution Empowering the Connection to Cloud-Based Systems Management

UCS FI + B/C/S UCS C/S HyperFlex

UCS Manager IMC HX Connect

Device Connector

BRKDCT-2088 43


Intersight Connection to Element Managers

A very light and autonomous piece of software allowing:

• Communication with the Intersight

portal, wherever the portal is.

• Capability of inserting tasks / calls

against the infrastructure (UCS

Manager, Cisco IMC Software,

HyperFlex, UCS Director) via the

pluggable / extensible framework

Key Features

• Bundled with Firmware

• Embedded Product Feature

• Secure Communications

• Self Updated

• Autonomous Check-In

UCSManager

ElementManagement

Cisco Intersight

Unique Customer InstanceTwo-factor Authentication

US Fabric Interconnect

(All Servers)

IMCSoftware

ElementManagement

C-Series Servers

(Standalone)

HXConnect

ElementManagement

HyperFlex

(Under UCS Manager or Edge)

BRKDCT-2088 44


How is the Device Connector Deployed?

• Integrated in Firmware/Management SW

• UCS Manager

• Standalone IMC

• HyperFlex (Controller VM)

• Connects to a known cloud management location (specific URL)

• Device drives all workflows

• Only device outbound connections

• Device connects to Intersight and receives instructions

45BRKDCT-2088


Device Connector Upgrades

Device Connector reports current version each startup

If Intersight determines an upgrade is needed, an upgrade request is created with the desired version

Device performs upgrade

Only attempted if device is currently connected

Only impacts Device Connector – Infrastructure, Server, or HyperFlex FW/SW remains user controlled and is not automatically updated

Intersight polls device registration to determine upgrade success

46BRKDCT-2088


Device Connector Availability

Cisco HyperFlex:

- HX v2.5.1 (or later)

Cisco UCS Manager:

- UCSM v3.2 (or later)

Standalone C-Series: (M5 Servers):

- IMC Software v3.1 (or later)

BRKDCT-2088 47

Security


Stand-Alone

UCS C-SeriesHyperFlex

Intersight Enhanced Security

• Ensuring Connections

• Durable websocket is used after initial connection

• Two factor authentication when claiming a device: serial number and claim code

• During subsequent transfers: identify, authenticate, and authorize

• All communication from device is outbound

• Device initiates connection

• No inbound connections are needed

Intersight

HTTPS/TLSIntersight and device in syncwith latest security updates

BRKDCT-2088 49


Intersight InfoSec

• 6-month Formal InfoSec Engagement

• Continuous monitoring & assessment

50BRKDCT-2088

DevelopmentTech

PreviewProduction

• Threat Modeling

• Architecture

• Training

• Design & Implementation

• Operations


Management Network Separation

• Intersight uses an Out of Band Management Architecture to separate management data from IT production network and application data

• No disruption to customer’s IT production if Intersight connection is interrupted

• Only management network accessible data (e.g., device configuration and usage) is stored in Intersight

• All sensitive data (e.g., passwords) stored in encrypted format

• Application workload data does not pass through to Intersight

51BRKDCT-2088


Intersight Device/Browser Connectivity

HTTPS (port 443) or proxy

Outbound Initiated Only (from Browser)

HTTPS (port 443) or proxy

Outbound Initiated Only (from Browser)

1. Operations/Administration

Off Premise

1. Account Setup/Creation

2. Device Claiming

3. Operations/Administration

Customer Premise

Fabric Interconnect Device Connector

C-series (IMC) Device Connector

HX Device Connector

Tie

r-1,

SA

S70

typ

e II /

SS

AE1

6 C

ert

ifie

d D

ata

cente

rs

Cloud Portal

FIPS 140-2ISO 27001HIPAAPCI (Level 1)

User Access

https://intersight.com• cisco.com used to create a

Intersight account• Becomes the “root” user• Invite other cisco.com users

• User can only be “root” for one Intersight instance

Device Access

• DNS required - must resolvesvc.ucs-connect.com

• Intersight always provides CA signed x509 certificate

• Two Factor Authentication for device claim• Device Serial Number• Device Claim Code

Device Traffic

Certificate Authority (CA) Signed Certificate

User Browser Traffic

Certificate Authority (CA) Signed Certificate

TLS v1.1 (or higher)

BRKDCT-2088 52

https://intersight.com/

Getting Started


Cisco Intersight Account Creation

• Users navigate to https://www.intersight.com and sign into portal with cisco.com ID/password – required

• Can create new account or sign into exisiting account

• Existing account accessed with account number

• New accounts created with device ID / claim code (IMC/UCSM/HX Cluster) – must accept offer agreement first

• Must claim a single device to create account

BRKDCT-2088 54

https://www.intersight.com/


Cisco Intersight Device Claim

• Additional devices can be claimed from Devices tab – each device has a unique device ID and claim code

• Devices must be running supported firmware version that includes Intersight Device Connector

• Devices are claimed one at a time, bulk claim is a work in progress

BRKDCT-2088 55


Intersight Portal Status

https://status.intersight.com/

Overall Status of Portal Services Displayed

• Device Connector

• Inventory (Device Data Collection)

• Login/Account Authentication

• Techsupport

56BRKDCT-2088

https://status.ucs-starship.com/


Intersight Online Help

https://intersight.com/help

Site Tour of Dashboard, Alarms, Search, Settings, etc.

Specific flows also covered

• Claim a New Device

• Add a New User

57BRKDCT-2088

Guided Help for

common operations

https://intersight.com/help


Feedback/Troubleshooting

[email protected] for feedback/issues

End of the Guided Site Tour references the feedback mailer

Settings->Audit Logs displays information on activity/timestamps

• Important to capture when submitting issues

58BRKDCT-2088

mailto:[email protected]


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61BRKDCT-2088

Thank you

Documents

Cisco Intersight: Enabling management of Cisco UCS · Cisco Intersight Server Profiles Overview • Individual Server profiles are created within the Profiles tab • Users select