Chassis IO Modules Test

The Cisco UCS chassis contains I/O Modules or Fabric Extenders that allow the blade servers in the chassis to communicate with Cisco UCS Fabric Interconnects. The chassis supports up to two I/O Modules, each with four I/O ports.

The Cisco UCS Fabric Extenders bring the unified fabric into the blade server enclosure, providing 10 Gigabit Ethernet connections between blade servers and the fabric interconnect, simplifying diagnostics, cabling, and management.

The Cisco UCS Fabric Extenders extend the I/O fabric between the Cisco UCS Fabric Interconnects and the Cisco Blade Server Chassis, enabling a lossless and deterministic Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) fabric to connect all blades and chassis together. Since the fabric extender is similar to a distributed line card, it does not do any switching and is managed as an extension of the fabric interconnects. This approach removes switching from the chassis, reducing overall infrastructure complexity and enabling the Cisco Unified Computing System to scale to many chassis without multiplying the number of switches needed, reducing TCO and allowing all chassis to be managed as a single, highly available management domain.

The Cisco UCS Fabric Extenders also manages the chassis environment (the power supply and fans as well as the blades) in conjunction with the Fabric Interconnects. Therefore, separate chassis management modules are not required.

Cisco UCS Fabric Extenders fit into the back of the Cisco UCS Chassis. Each Cisco UCS Chassis can support up to two Fabric Extenders, enabling increased capacity as well as redundancy.

This test monitors the overall health of each of the I/O Modules present in every chassis managed by the Cisco UCS manager, and in the process, promptly alerts you to abnormalities in the power, thermal, voltage states of the modules and sudden spikes in the ambient/ASIC temperature of the modules. This way, defective I/O modules come to light. 

Target of the test : A Cisco UCS manager

Agent deploying the test : A remote agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for each I/O module in each chassis managed by the Cisco UCS manager being monitored.

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameter Description

Test Period

How often should the test be executed.

Host

The IP address of the host for which the test is being configured.

Port

The port at which the specified host listens. By default, this is NULL.

UCS User and
UCS Password

Provide the credentials of a user with at least read-only privileges to the target Cisco UCS manager.

Confirm Password

Confirm the password by retyping it here.

SSL

By default, the Cisco UCS manager is SSL-enabled. Accordingly, the SSL flag is set to Yes by default.

Web Port

By default, in most virtualized environments, Cisco UCS manager listens on port 80 (if not SSL-enabeld) or on port 443 (if SSL-enabled) only. This implies that while monitoring Cisco UCS manager, the eG agent, by default, connects to port 80 or 443, depending upon the SSL-enabled status of Cisco UCS manager - i.e., if Cisco UCS manager is not SSL-enabled (i.e., if the SSL flag above is set to No), then the eG agent connects to Cisco UCS manager using port 80 by default, and if Cisco UCS manager is SSL-enabled (i.e., if the SSL flag is set to Yes), then the agent-Cisco UCS manager communication occurs via port 443 by default. Accordingly, the WebPort parameter is set to default by default.

In some environments however, the default ports 80 or 443 might not apply. In such a case, against the WebPort parameter, you can specify the exact port at which the Cisco UCS manager in your environment listens, so that the eG agent communicates with that port for collecting metrics from the Cisco UCS manager.

Detailed Diagnosis

To make diagnosis more efficient and accurate, the eG Enterprise embeds an optional detailed diagnostic capability. With this capability, the eG agents can be configured to run detailed, more elaborate tests as and when specific problems are detected. To enable the detailed diagnosis capability of this test for a particular server, choose the On option. To disable the capability, click on the Off option.

The option to selectively enable/disable the detailed diagnosis capability will be available only if the following conditions are fulfilled:

  • The eG manager license should allow the detailed diagnosis capability
  • Both the normal and abnormal frequencies configured for the detailed diagnosis measures should not be 0.
Measurements made by the test
Measurement Description Measurement Unit Interpretation

Configuration state

Indicates the current configuration status of this I/O module present in this chassis.

 

The States reported by this measure and their corresponding numeric equivalents are described in the table below:

State Numeric Value
Un-initialized 0
Un-acknowledged 1
Unsupported-connectivity 2
Ok 3
Removing 4

Note:

By default, this measure reports the above-mentioned States while indicating the configuration status of the I/O module in this chassis. However, in the graph of this measure, states will be represented using the corresponding numeric equivalents i.e., 0 to 4.

The detailed diagnosis of this measure provides the Time, ID, PID, Side, Chassis ID, Fabric ID, Revision, Serial Number and Vendor attributes for each I/O module.

Overall status

 

Indicates the overall status of this I/O module present in this chassis.

 

 

 

The States reported by this measure and their corresponding numeric equivalents are described in the table below:

State Numeric Value
Unknown 0
Operable 1
Inoperable 2
Degraded 3
Powered-off 4
Power-problem 5
Removed 6
Voltage-problem 7
Thermal-problem 8
Performance-problem 9
Accessibility-problem 10
Identity-unestablishable 11
Bios-post-timeout 12
Disabled 13
Fabric-conn-problem 51
Fabric-unsupported-conn 52
Config 81
Equipment-problem 82
Decommissioning 83
Chassis-limit-exceeded 84
Discovery 101
Discovery-failed 102
Identify 103
Post-failure 104
Upgrade-problem 105
Peer-comm-problem 106
Auto-upgrade 107

Note:

By default, this measure reports the above-mentioned States while indicating the status of the I/O module in this chassis. However, in the graph of this measure, states will be represented using the corresponding numeric equivalents only.

Operability

Indicates the current operating state of this I/O module present in this chassis.

 

The States reported by this measure and their corresponding numeric equivalents are described in the table below:

State Numeric Value
Unknown 0
Operable 1
Inoperable 2
Degraded 3
Powered-off 4
Power-problem 5
Removed 6
Voltage-problem 7
Thermal-problem 8
Performance-problem 9
Accessibility-problem 10
Identity-unestablishable 11
Bios-post-timeout 12
Disabled 13
Fabric-conn-problem 51
Fabric-unsupported-conn 52
Config 81
Equipment-problem 82
Decommissioning 83
Chassis-limit-exceeded 84
Numeric Value State

Note:

By default, this measure reports the above-mentioned States while indicating the operability of an I/O module in this chassis. However, in the graph of this measure, states will be represented using their corresponding numeric equivalents only.

Performance state

Indicates the current performance status of this I/O module present in this chassis.

 

The States reported by this measure and their corresponding numeric equivalents are described in the table below:

State Numeric Value
Unknown 0
Ok 1
Upper-non-recoverable 2
Upper-critical 3
Upper-non-critical 4
Lower-non-critical 5
Lower-critical 6
Lower non-recoverable 7

Note:

By default, this measure reports the above-mentioned States while indicating the performance state of an I/O module. However, in the graph of this measure, states will be represented using the corresponding numeric equivalents.

Power state

Indicates the current power status of this I/O module in this chassis.

 

The State values reported by this measure and their corresponding numeric equivalents are described in the table below:

State Numeric Value
Unknown 0
On 1
Test 2
Off 3
Online 4
Offline 5
Offduty 6
Degraded 7
Power-save 8
Error 9

Note:

By default, this measure reports the above-mentioned States while indicating the power state of an I/O module. However, in the graph of this measure, states will be represented using their corresponding numeric equivalents only.

Presence state

Indicates the current state of this I/O module in this chassis.

 

The State values reported by this measure and their corresponding numeric equivalents are described in the table below:

State Numeric Value
Unknown 0
Empty 1
Equipped 10
Missing 11
Mismatch 12
Equipped-not-primary 13
Equipped-identity-unestablishable 20
Inaccessible 30
Unauthorized 40

Note:

By default, this measure reports the above-mentioned States while indicating the current state of the I/O module in this chassis. However, in the graph of this measure, states will be represented using their corresponding numeric equivalents only.

Thermal state

Indicates the current thermal state of this I/O module present in this chassis.

 

The State values reported by this measure and their corresponding numeric equivalents are described in the table below:

State Numeric Value
Unknown 0
Ok 1
Upper-non-recoverable 2
Upper-critical 3
Upper-non-critical 4
Lower-non-critical 5
Lower-critical 6
Lower non-recoverable 7

Note:

By default, this measure reports the above-mentioned States while indicating the thermal state of the I/O modules in this chassis. However, in the graph of this measure, states will be represented using the corresponding numeric equivalents only.

Voltage state

Indicates the current voltage state of this I/O module present in this chassis.

 

The State values reported by this measure and their corresponding numeric equivalents are described in the table below:

State Numeric Value
Unknown 0
Ok 1
Upper-non-recoverable 2
Upper-critical 3
Upper-non-critical 4
Lower-non-critical 5
Lower-critical 6
Lower non-recoverable 7

Note:

By default, this measure reports the above-mentioned States while indicating the voltage state of the I/O module in this chassis. However, in the graph of this measure, states will be represented using their corresponding numeric equivalents only.

Ambient temperature

Indicates the current ambient temperature of this I/O module present in this chassis.

Celcius

An abnormal temperature may cause severe damage to the I/O modules.

ASIC temperature

Indicates the current temperature of the ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit) in this I/O module present in this chassis.

Celcius

An application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) is an integrated circuit (IC) customized for a particular use, rather than intended for general-purpose use.

If an ASIC registers an abnormal temperature, it may severely affect the operations of the I/O module in which that ASIC operates.

The detailed diagnosis of Configuration state measure provides the Time, ID, PID, Side, Chassis ID, Fabric ID, Revision, Serial Number and Vendor attributes for each I/O module.

layer 4 test 1 measure 2 dd

Figure 1 : The detailed diagnosis of the Configuration state measure of the Chassis I/O Modules Test