The Cisco UCS Manager can classify servers into resource pools based on criteria including physical attributes (such as processor, memory, and disk capacity) and location (for example, blade chassis slot). Server pools can help automate configuration by identifying servers that can be configured to assume a particular role (such as web server or database server) and automatically configuring them when they are added to a pool.

Resource pools are collections of logical resources that can be accessed when configuring a server. These resources include universally unique IDs (UUIDs), MAC addresses, and WWNs.

The Cisco UCS platform utilizes a dynamic identity instead of hardware burned-in identities. A unique identity is assigned from identity and resource pools. Computers and peripherals extract these identities from service profiles. A service profile has all the server identities including UUIDs, MACs, WWNNs, firmware versions, BIOS settings, policies, and other server settings. A service profile is associated with the physical server that assigns all the settings in a service profile to the physical server.

In case of server failure, the failed server needs to be removed and the replacement server needs to be associated with the existing service profile of the failed server. In this service profile association process, the new server automatically picks up all the identities of the failed server, and the operating system or applications that depend on these identities do not observe any change in the hardware. In case of peripheral failure, the replacement peripheral automatically acquires the identities of the failed components. This significantly improves the system recovery time in case of a failure. Server profiles include many identity pools:

UUID suffix pools

MAC pools

IP pools

Server pools

Universally Unique Identifier Suffix Pools

A universally unique identifier suffix pool is a collection of System Management BIOS (SMBIOS) UUIDs that are available to be assigned to servers. The first number of digits that constitute the prefix of the UUID is fixed. The remaining digits, the UUID suffix, are variable. A UUID suffix pool ensures that these variable values are unique for each server associated with a service profile which uses that particular pool to avoid conflicts.

If you use UUID suffix pools in service profiles, you do not have to manually configure the UUID of the server associated with the service profile.

An example of creating UUID pools is as follows:

Step 1. In the Navigation pane, click Servers.

Step 2. Expand Servers > Pools.

Step 3. Expand the node for the organization where you want to create the pool. If the system does not include multitenancy, expand the root node.

Step 4. Right-click UUID Suffix Pools and select Create UUID Suffix Pool.

Step 5. In the Define Name and Description page of the Create UUID Suffix Pool wizard, complete the following fields (see Figure 12-46):

Figure 12-46 Creating UUID Suffix Pool

Step 6. Click Next.

Step 7. In the Add UUID Blocks page of the Create UUID Suffix Pool wizard, click Add.

Step 8. In the Create a Block of UUID Suffixes dialog box, complete the following fields:

Step 9. Click OK.

Step 10. Click Finish to complete the wizard.

You need to assign the UUID suffix pool to a service profile and/or template.