Chapter 2. Setting Up Lab Using Cisco UCS Emulator

Cisco UCS platform emulator is an excellent tool to demonstrate and practice salient features provided by the UCS platform, in order to attain hands-on experience without setting up a UCS platform lab. UCS emulator could be used to enhance familiarization with the UCS platform and also to provide demos to prospective clients. It mimics the real UCS hardware with a configurable hardware inventory, including multiple chassis with multiple blade servers and multiple rack-mount servers. Working with UCS emulator provides a feeling of real hardware, and allows the user to set up the UCS hardware virtually, while becoming more comfortable with it before configuring the actual UCS hardware. It is an excellent resource for getting hands-on experience with the UCS platform. UCS emulator requirements are so minimal that it can be easily installed in a home-based lab on a standard laptop or desktop.

UCS platform emulator is freely downloadable from the Cisco website. In order to download it, a Cisco Connection Online (CCO) login is required, which can be created by anyone interested in learning and working with Cisco technologies. It is available on the Cisco developer's network website (developer.cisco.com). You can download the latest emulator package from the developer network, which can be installed under various virtualization platforms. Old archives of previous UCS platform emulator versions are also available for download on the same page.

Using UCS platform emulator, it is possible to import configuration from a live UCS system. Also, a configuration created on the UCS platform emulator can be exported in an XML file format, which can then be imported to a production system. This is extremely helpful for duplicating a production UCS system configuration for troubleshooting, testing, and development purposes.

In this chapter, we will interchangeably use the term UCSPE for Unified Computing System Platform Emulator, and UCSM for Unified Computing System Manger.

This chapter will cover the following topics: