Cisco UCS C-Series Servers and the Cisco IMC Supervisor – Cisco Describing Cisco UCS Components

March 6, 2024

Cisco UCS C-Series Servers and the Cisco IMC Supervisor

Cisco UCS C-Series rack servers deliver unified computing in a rack-mount form factor. The Cisco UCS C-Series rack server family offers an entry point into unified computing. Cisco UCS C-Series rack servers offer the flexibility of standalone management or can be integrated as part of a Cisco UCS managed environment.

The Cisco UCS C-Series rack servers, shown in Figure 16-12, from the fifth generation (M5) are as follows:

  

Figure 16-12 Cisco UCS C-Series Servers Fifth Generation

  • Cisco UCS C220 M5 rack server
  • Cisco UCS C240 M5 rack server
  • Cisco UCS C480 M5 rack servers
  • Cisco UCS C480 ML M5 rack servers
  • Cisco UCS C4200 Series rack server chassis
  • Cisco UCS C125 M5 rack server node

The Cisco UCS C-series offers various models that can address different workload challenges through a balance of processing, memory, I/O, and internal storage resources.

When used with Cisco UCS Manager, Cisco UCS C-Series servers bring the power and automation of unified computing to enterprise applications, including Cisco SingleConnect technology. Cisco SingleConnect unifies LAN, SAN, and systems management into one simplified link for rack servers, blade servers, and virtual machines. This technology reduces the number of network adapters, cables, and switches needed, radically simplifies the network, and reduces complexity.

Cisco UCS Manager uses service profiles, templates, and policy-based management to enable rapid deployment and to help ensure deployment consistency. It also enables end-to-end server visibility, management, and control in both virtualized and bare-metal environments.

Cisco UCS C-Series M5 servers are Cisco Intersight ready. Cisco Intersight is a new cloud-based management platform that uses analytics to deliver proactive automation and support. By combining intelligence with automated actions, you can reduce costs dramatically and resolve issues more quickly.

The Cisco UCS C220 M5 rack server is among the most versatile, general-purpose, enterprise infrastructure and application servers in the industry. It is a high-density two-socket rack server that delivers exceptional performance and efficiency for a wide range of workloads, including virtualization, collaboration, and bare-metal applications.

The Cisco UCS C220 M5 server extends the capabilities of the Cisco UCS portfolio in a 1RU form factor. It incorporates Intel Xeon Scalable processors, which support up to 20% more cores per socket, twice the memory capacity, 20% greater storage density, and five times more PCIe NVMe SSDs compared to the previous generation of servers. These improvements deliver significant performance and efficiency gains that will improve your application performance.

The Cisco UCS C220 M5 delivers outstanding levels of expandability and performance in a compact package that includes the following:

  • Latest (second-generation) Intel Xeon Scalable CPUs, with up to 28 cores per socket
  • Support for first-generation Intel Xeon Scalable CPUs, with up to 28 cores per socket
  • Up to 24 DDR4 DIMMs for improved performance
  • Support for the Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory (128G, 256G, 512G)
  • Up to 10 Small-Form-Factor (SFF) 2.5-inch drives or four Large-Form-Factor (LFF) 3.5-inch drives (77TB storage capacity with all NVMe PCIe SSDs)
  • Support for a 12-Gbps SAS modular RAID controller in a dedicated slot, leaving the remaining PCIe Generation 3.0 slots available for other expansion cards
  • Modular LAN-On-Motherboard (mLOM) slot that can be used to install a Cisco UCS Virtual Interface Card (VIC) without consuming a PCIe slot
  • Dual embedded Intel x550 10GBASE-T LAN-On-Motherboard (LOM) ports

The Cisco UCS C240 M5 rack server is a two-socket, 2RU rack server that offers industry-leading performance and expandability. It supports a wide range of storage and I/O-intensive infrastructure workloads, from big data and analytics to collaboration.

The C240 M5 delivers outstanding levels of storage expandability with exceptional performance and includes the following:

  • The latest (second-generation) Intel Xeon Scalable CPUs, with up to 28 cores per socket
  • Support for the Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory (128G, 256G, 512G)
  • Up to 24 DDR4 DIMMs for improved performance, including higher-density DDR4 DIMMs
  • Up to 26 hot-swappable Small-Form-Factor (SFF) 2.5-inch drives, including two rear hot-swappable SFF drives (up to 10 support NVMe PCIe SSDs on the NVMe-optimized chassis version) or 12 Large-Form-Factor (LFF) 3.5-inch drives plus two rear hot-swappable SFF drives
  • Support for 12-Gbps SAS modular RAID controller in a dedicated slot, leaving the remaining PCIe Generation 3.0 slots available for other expansion cards
  • Modular LAN-On-Motherboard (mLOM) slot that can be used to install a Cisco UCS Virtual Interface Card (VIC) without consuming a PCIe slot, supporting dual 10 or 40-Gbps network connectivity
  • Dual embedded Intel x550 10GBASE-T LAN-On-Motherboard (LOM) ports
  • Modular M.2 or Secure Digital (SD) cards that can be used for boot

The Cisco UCS C480 M5 rack server is a storage- and I/O-optimized enterprise-class rack server that delivers industry-leading performance for in-memory databases, big data analytics, virtualization, and bare-metal applications. The C480 M5 comes in a 4RU form-factor and has the following characteristics:

  • Four new second-generation Intel Xeon Scalable CPUs (up to 28 cores per socket)
  • Four existing Intel Xeon Scalable CPUs (up to 28 cores per socket)
  • Support for two-or four-processor configurations
  • Support for the Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory (128G, 256G, 512G)
  • Support for higher-density DDR4 memory, from 6TB (128G DDR4 DIMMs) to 12TB (256G DDR4 DIMMs)
  • Memory speed increase from 2666 MHz to 2933 MHz
  • Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory Modules (DCPMM): 128G, 256G, and 512G1
  • Up to 18TB using 24× 256G DDR4 DIMMs and 24× 512G Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory Modules
  • Up to four GPUs (two-CPU configuration) or six GPUs (four-CPU configuration) with offerings from NVIDIA and AMD
  • Twelve PCI Express (PCIe) 3.0 slots
    • Six x8 full-height, full length slots
    • Six x16 full-height, full length slots
  • Flexible storage options with support up to 32 Small-Form-Factor (SFF) 2.5-inch, SAS, SATA, and PCIe NVMe disk drives
  • Cisco 12Gbps SAS modular RAID controller in a dedicated slot
  • Internal Secure Digital (SD) and M.2 boot options
  • Dual embedded 10-Gigabit Ethernet LAN-On-Motherboard (LOM) ports

The Cisco UCS C480 ML M5 rack server is a purpose-built server for deep learning. It is storage- and I/O-optimized to deliver performance for training models. It comes in a 4RU form factor and offers these capabilities:

  • Eight NVIDIA SXM2 V100 32G modules with NVLink interconnect.
  • The latest Intel Xeon Scalable processors with up to 28 cores per socket and support for two processor configurations. It supports both first- and second-generation Intel Xeon Scalable CPUs.
  • 2933MHz DDR4 memory and 24 DIMM slots for up to 7.5TB of total memory
  • Support for the Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory (128G, 256G, and 512G)
  • Memory speed increase from 2666 MHz to 2933 MHz
  • Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory Modules (DCPMM): 128G, 256G, and 512G[1]
  • Up to 7.5TB using 12× 128G DDR4 DIMMs and 12× 512G Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory Modules
  • Four PCI Express (PCIe) 3.0 slots for 100G UCS VIC 1495
  • Flexible storage options with support for up to 24 Small-Form-Factor (SFF) 2.5-inch, SAS/SATA solid-state disks (SSDs) and hard-disk drives (HDDs)
  • Up to six PCIe NVMe disk drives
  • One Cisco 12-Gbps SAS modular RAID controller in a dedicated slot
  • M.2 boot options
  • Dual embedded 10-Gigabit Ethernet LAN-On-Motherboard (LOM) ports

Figure 16-13 shows the Cisco UCS C4200 rack server and the C125 M5 rack server node.

  

Figure 16-13 Cisco UCS C4200 Series Rack Server and the C125 M5 Rack Server Node

The C4200 chassis extends the capabilities of the Cisco UCS portfolio in a two-rack-unit (2RU) form factor supporting up to four Cisco UCS C125 M5 rack server nodes. The latest update includes support for AMD EPYC 2 (Rome) 7002 processors. The AMD EPYC 2 processors have higher core density (up to 64 cores) and higher performance with an enhanced AMD Zen 2 core design. The existing AMD EPYC 7001 processors will continue to be offered for flexibility of customer choice. Both CPU types deliver significant performance and efficiency gains in a compact form factor that will improve your application performance while saving space. The C4200 and C125 M5 nodes deliver outstanding levels of capability and performance in a highly compact package, with the following features:

  • AMD EPYC 7002 (Rome) series processors with up to 64 cores per socket, and AMD EPYC 7001 (Naples) series processors with up to 32 cores per socket
  • Up to 1TB of DRAM using 16 64GB DDR4 DIMMs for two-socket CPU configuration (eight DIMMs/memory channels per CPU)
  • 3200MHz 16G/32G/64G DIMMs for AMD EPYC 7002 (Rome) CPUs, and 2666MHz 16G/32G/64G DIMMs of AMD EPYC 7001 (Naples) CPUs
  • Over 45TB of storage, with up to six Small-Form-Factor (SFF) 2.5-inch direct-attached drives per node
    • Either six direct-attached SAS/SATA drives or two NVMe plus four SAS/SATA drives
  • Optional dual SD cards or M.2 modular storage for increased storage or boot drive capacity
  • Support for the Cisco 12-G 9460-8i PCIe SAS RAID controller with 2GB Flash-Backed Write Cache (FBWC)
  • Support for the Cisco 12-G 9400-8i PCIe SAS controller for use with external disk arrays
  • OCP 2.0 network mezzanine slot supporting speeds up to 100Gbps
  • Support for Cisco’s fourth-generation PCIe Virtual Interface Card (VIC)

The sixth-generation (M6) Cisco UCS C-Series rack servers, shown in Figure 16-14, are as follows:

  

Figure 16-14 Cisco UCS C-Series Sixth-Generation Rack Servers

  • Cisco UCS C220 M6 rack server
  • Cisco UCS C225 M6 rack server
  • Cisco UCS C240 M6 rack server

The Cisco UCS C220 M6 rack server extends the capabilities of the Cisco UCS rack server portfolio. It incorporates the third-generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors with more than 40% more cores per socket and 33% more memory versus the previous generation. These improvements deliver up to 40% more performance that will improve your application performance. The Cisco UCS C220 M6 rack server delivers outstanding levels of expandability and performance. It offers the following features:

  • Up to two third-generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors (with up to 40 cores per socket)
  • Memory:
    • 32 DIMM slots (16 DIMMs per CPU socket)
    • 3200 MHz DDR4 memory plus other speeds, depending on the CPU installed
    • 32× DDR4 DIMMs for up to 4TB of capacity using 128 GB DIMMs, or
    • 16× DDR4 DIMMs + 16x Intel Optane persistent memory modules for up to 10TB of memory
  • Up to three PCIe 4.0 slots plus a modular LAN On Motherboard (mLOM) slot
  • Support for Cisco UCS VIC 1400 Series adapters as well as third-party options
  • Up to 10 SAS/SATA or NVMe disk drives
  • RAID controller options available
  • M.2 boot options
  • Up to 960 GB with optional hardware RAID
  • Up to two GPUs supported

The C225 M6 rack server is single socket optimized. All I/O is tied to one CPU and its 128 PCIe lanes. Since each server supports up to 2TB and 64 cores per socket, many customers find that one CPU server now meets their needs. This can reduce software licensing and support costs leading to a better TCO.

The technical characteristics of the C225 M6 server are as follows:

  • One or two third-generation AMD EPYC CPUs, with up to 64 cores per socket
  • Memory:
    • 32 DIMM slots (16 DIMMs per CPU socket), 3200 MHz DDR4
    • Up to 4TB of capacity
  • Up to 10 Small-Form-Factor (SFF) front-loading hot-pluggable drives (NVMe/SAS/SATA)
  • Up to three PCIe 4.0 slots
  • Support for 1400 Series VIC and OCP 3.0 network cards
  • RAID controller and GPU options available
  • Internal dual M.2 drive options

The Cisco UCS C240 M6 server extends the capabilities of the Cisco UCS rack server portfolio with third-generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors supporting more than 43% more cores per socket and 33% more memory when compared with the previous generation. This provides up to 40% more performance than the M5 generation for your most demanding applications. It is well-suited for a wide range of storage and I/O-intensive applications such as big data analytics, databases, collaboration, virtualization, consolidation, and high-performance computing in its two-socket, 2RU form factor, as it offers the following features:

  • Up to two third-generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors (with up to 40 cores per socket)
  • Memory:
    • 32 DIMM slots (16 DIMMs per CPU socket)
    • 3200 MHz DDR4 memory plus other speeds, depending on the CPU installed
    • 32× DDR4 DIMMs for up to 8TB of capacity using 256GB DIMMs, or
    • 16× DDR4 DIMMs + 16× Intel Optane persistent memory modules for up to 12TB of memory
  • Up to eight PCIe 4.0 slots plus modular LAN On Motherboard (mLOM) slot
  • Support for Cisco UCS VIC 1400 Series adapters as well as third-party options
  • Up to 28 SAS/SATA/NVMe disk drives
    • RAID controller options available
    • M.2 boot options
    • Up to 960 GB with optional hardware RAID
  • Support for up to five GPUs