Cisco UCS Monitoring

Cisco UCS (Unified Computing System) is a data center product line composed of computing hardware, virtualization support, switching fabric, and management software. LogicMonitor gathers metrics for the system via the UCS Manager XML API. To see the metrics exposed via the UCS Manager XML API, refer to your API documentation at http://<your UCS Manager IP address>/docs.

For additional API information, see the Cisco UCS Manager XML API Programmer’s Guide documentation from Cisco.

LogicMonitor’s Cisco UCS suite supports monitoring Cisco UCS environments through two management tools offered by Cisco – Cisco UCS Manager (UCSM) or Cisco Integrated Management Controller (CIMC). UCSM environments will need their accompanying Fabric Interconnects (FI) added into LM for full monitoring coverage. The UCS Manager is tied to a virtual IP address and the management database is replicated on the secondary Fabric Interconnect so failure of a single interconnect should not affect data collection. CIMC devices are unmanaged standalone servers with an XML API that is consistent with the one used by UCSM.

Compatibility

As of August 2021, LogicMonitor’s Cisco UCS package is confirmed to be compatible with all current versions of Cisco UCS Manager XML API.

Setup Requirements

• Import the LogicMonitor_Collector_Snippets DataSource to ensure that your collector supports the code in this monitoring suite, or update to EA Collector 32.100 or later. See Managing your Collector.

Add Resources into monitoring

If your UCS device is managed using CIMC, you only need to add the CIMC server into monitoring. However, UCSM environments must add the following three resources into monitoring from within the LogicMonitor interface for complete monitoring:

• UCS Manager
• Fabric Interconnects (2)

For more information on adding resources into monitoring, see Adding Devices.

Obtain credentials for UCS Manager

LogicMonitor must provide credentials when accessing the UCS Manager API. These credentials should belong to an API user account that is assigned the read-only role.

For security purposes, it is strongly recommended that the user account does not have privileges above read-only as the majority of other available roles can make configuration changes using the API. For more information on creating UCS user accounts, see the Cisco UCS Manager GUI Configuration Guide.

Assign properties to Resources

The following custom properties must be set on the Cisco UCS resources within LogicMonitor. For more information on setting properties, see Resource and Instance Properties.

Property	Value
ucs_api.mgmt_host	The IP address or FQDN of the UCS Manager. Note: For CIMC devices, this is not required, and system.hostname is used if this property is not set.
ucs_api.user	The UCS Manager username.
ucs_api.pass	The UCS Manager password.
ucs_api.port	(Optional) The port used to access the UCS Manager API. Defaults to 443 if not specified.

Import LogicModules

Import all Cisco UCS LogicModules from the LogicMonitor public repository. See the list of LogicModules in Package. If these LogicModules are already present, make sure you have the most recent versions.

Once the LogicModules are imported (assuming all previous setup requirements have been met), the PropertySource will automatically assign the appropriate values to the system.categories property for your Cisco UCS resources. This, in turn, will automatically associate the DataSources and data collection will begin.

Considerations

• Cisco UCSM devices are sensitive to high session counts. As a best practice, LogicMonitor recommends having a dedicated API user for monitoring that is not used in any other applications. LogicMonitor also provides built-in alerts for session counts to inform users when session counts are nearing default maximum limits. If necessary, the maximum concurrent sessions can be reconfigured on the Cisco side (refer to Cisco documentation for details) and this alert threshold in LogicMonitor can be customized.
• CIMC devices use a subset of the Cisco UCS management information model in the API. Because of this, some DataSources applied to both UCSM and CIMC devices provide less data for CIMC devices. These will show as “No Data” on CIMC devices and are noted in the tech notes or datapoint descriptions.

Troubleshooting

• The modules in this package are designed with a debug mode embedded in the active discovery and data collection scripts. If issues occur, turn on debug mode by setting the variable debug to “true” to get more information in the output when testing the script in the Collector Debug Facility. For more information on testing scripts in the Collector Debug Facility, see Script Troubleshooting for more info.
• The modules in this package are also designed with a log mode embedded in the active discovery and data collection scripts. This can help reveal issues occuring in data collection cycles that may be difficult to diagnose running the script manually, such as intermittent issues. If issues occur, turn on log mode by setting the variable log to “true”. See Collector Logging for more info.
• This suite uses a single API session per device managed through the Cisco_UCS_Sessions DataSource. If you experience authentication issues, first ensure this module is imported and working properly.

LogicModules in Package

LogicMonitor’s package for Cisco UCS consists of the following LogicModules. For full coverage, ensure that all of these LogicModules are imported into your LogicMonitor platform. The table also provides a reference for which UCS device type each module is compatible with.

Display Name	Type	Description	Device Type
addCategory_Cisco_UCS	PropertySource	Sets the appropriate system category for Cisco UCS Managers (“CiscoUCSManager”), Fabric Interconnects (“CiscoUCSFabricInterconnect”), and Integrated Management Controllers (“CiscoIMC”).	UCSM, FI, CIMC
addERI_Cisco_UCS	PropertySource	Sets device External Resource IDs (ERIs) for UCS Managers and FabricInterconnects for topology mapping, including DN and MAC addresses.	UCSM, FI
Cisco_UCS_Topology	TopologySource	Generate UCS topologies based on data from the UCS Manager API.	UCSM, FI
UCS Sessions	DataSource	Count of concurrent user sessions on Cisco UCS device.	UCSM, FI, CIMC
UCS Blade Servers	DataSource	Monitors performance metrics for Cisco UCS Blade Servers.	UCSM, CIMC
UCS Blade Server Components	DataSource	Monitors status and temperature metrics for Cisco UCS Blade Servers.	UCSM, CIMC
UCS Rack Servers	DataSource	Monitors performance metrics for Cisco UCS Rack Servers.	UCSM, CIMC
UCS Rack Server Components	DataSource	Monitors status and temperature metrics for Cisco UCS Rack Servers.	UCSM, CIMC
UCS Fans	DataSource	Monitors performance metrics for fan modules for Cisco UCS hardware.	UCSM, CIMC
UCS Faults	DataSource	Displays Faults from the UCS Fault table.	UCSM, CIMC
UCS PSUs	DataSource	Monitors PSU performance metrics for Cisco UCS hardware.	UCSM, CIMC
UCS Disks	DataSource	Monitors performance metrics for Cisco UCS disks on IMC servers.	CIMC
UCS Disks	DataSource	Monitors performance metrics for Cisco UCS Disks.	UCSM
UCS Chassis	DataSource	Monitors status metrics for Cisco UCS Chassis.	UCSM
UCS Chassis Slots	DataSource	Slot metrics for UCS Chassis.	UCSM
UCS Chassis Ports	DataSource	Monitors performance metrics for Cisco UCS chassis ports.	UCSM
UCS Fabric Extender	DataSource	System and port summary metrics for UCS Fabric Extenders.	UCSM
UCS FEX Ports	DataSource	Monitors status and error metrics for Cisco UCS Fabric Extender ports and port channels.	UCSM
UCS IO Cards	DataSource	Monitors status and environmental metrics for IO Cards.	UCSM
UCS SAN Port Channels	DataSource	Monitors performance metrics for Cisco UCS SAN port channels.	UCSM
UCS Server Interfaces	DataSource	Monitors status and performance metrics for Cisco UCS server interfaces.	UCSM
UCS Service Profiles	DataSource	Monitors state metrics for UCS Service Profiles.	UCSM
UCS VLANs	DataSource	Monitors Cisco UCS VLAN status metrics.	UCSM
UCS VSANs	DataSource	Monitors Cisco UCS VSAN status metrics.	UCSM
UCS Fabric Interconnect	DataSource	System and port summary metrics for UCS Fabric Interconnects.	FI
UCS Fabric Interconnect Storage Partitions	DataSource	Monitors usage metrics for Cisco UCS Fabric Interconnect storage partitions.	FI
UCS Ports	DataSource	Monitors performance metrics for Cisco UCS Fabric Interconnect ports.	FI

When setting static datapoint thresholds on the various metrics tracked by the DataSources in this package, LogicMonitor follows the technology owner’s best practice KPI recommendations. If necessary, we encourage you to adjust these predefined thresholds to meet the unique needs of your environment. For more information on tuning datapoint thresholds, see Tuning Static Thresholds for Datapoints.

Migration from Legacy Cisco UCS DataSources

The SNMP-based Cisco UCS LogicModules were deprecated in June 2020. This section provides details on how to migrate to the new API-based Cisco UCS DataSources.

The new DataSources query the UCS Manager API for data, whereas the prior suite relied on an SNMP collection method. Gathering metrics via the API offers many advantages, including:

• Access to more data
• Less network and interconnect resource usage, which allows DataSources to collect data at more frequent intervals
• Easier setup and configuration

The following table lists the deprecated SNMP modules and maps their functionality to the new API module(s).

SNMP Module	API Module
Cisco_UCS_ComponentHealth	Various
Cisco_UCS_ComponentTemperatures	Various
Cisco_UCS_PowerConsumption	Cisco_UCS_FabricExtender Cisco_UCS_RackServers Cisco_UCS_BladeServers
Cisco_UCS_ServiceProfileStatus	Cisco_UCS_ServiceProfiles
Cisco_UCS_VlanHealth	Cisco_UCS_VLANs
Cisco_UCS_VsanHealth	Cisco_UCS_vSANs
Cisco_UCS_StorageItems	Cisco_UCS_FIStoragePartitions
Cisco_UCS_EthernetInterfaces	Cisco_UCS_ServerInterfaces
Cisco_UCS_FanSpeed	Cisco_UCS_Fans
Cisco_UCS_FaultTable	Cisco_UCS_Faults
Cisco_UCS_ServiceProfileServerHealth	Cisco_UCS_RackServers Cisco_UCS_BladeServers
Cisco_UCS_VnicEthernetInterfaceHealth	Cisco_UCS_ServerInterfaces
Cisco_UCS_VnicTraffic	Cisco_UCS_ServerInterfaces

If you are currently monitoring Cisco UCS devices using any of these legacy DataSources, you will not experience data loss upon importing the new DataSources. This is because DataSource names have been changed to eliminate module overwriting.

However, you will collect duplicate data and receive duplicate alerts for as long as both sets of DataSources are active. For this reason, we recommend that you disable the above-listed DataSources after importing the new set of DataSources and confirming that they are working as intended in your environment.

When a DataSource is disabled, it stops querying the host and generating alerts, but maintains all historical data. At some point in time, you may want to delete the legacy DataSources altogether, but consider this move carefully as all historical data will be lost upon deletion. For more information on disabling DataSources, see Disabling Monitoring for a DataSource or Instance.