Chassis IO Module Fabric Ports Test

A typical Cisco UCS system supports up to two I/O modules, each configured with four ports of 10-Gb Ethernet, Cisco Data Center Ethernet, and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) connection to the fabric interconnect. Since the I/O module acts as a bridge between the UCS blades and the fabric interconnect, all Ethernet connections to the fabric interconnect will get suspended if one/more ports are rendered unavailable or non-operational for a brief period. It is hence imperative that the administrators be promptly alerted when the I/O module ports start behaving abnormally so that, remedial measures can be initiated instantaneously to avoid a prolonged port outage. This test monitors the overall health and availability of each of the ports in every I/O module, and sends out proactive alerts to potential performance anomalies.

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 fabric port in each I/O module of every 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

Overall status

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

 

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

State Numeric Value
Indeterminate 0
Up 1
Admin-down 2
Link-down 3
Failed 4
No-license 5
Link-up 6
Hardware-failure 7
Software-failure 8
Error-disabled 9
Sfp-not-present 10

Note:

By default, this measure reports the above-mentioned States while indicating the overall status of a port. However, in the graph of this measure, states will be represented using their corresponding numeric equivalents only.

The detailed diagnosis of this measure Time, ID, Slot ID, Chassis ID, Fabric ID, Port Type, Role Type, Network Type, Transport Type and Peer details of the I/O module fabric ports.

Acknowledged state

Indicates the current acknowledgment status of this port in this I/O module.

 

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

State Numeric Value
Un-initialized 1
Un-acknowledged 2
Unsupported-connectivity 3
Ok 4
Removing 5

Note:

By default, this measure reports the above-mentioned States while indicating the acknowledgment state of a port. However, in the graph of this measure, states will be represented using their corresponding numeric equivalents only.

Discovery state

Indicates the current discovered status of this port in this I/O module.

 

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

State Numeric Value
Absent 0
Present 1
Mis-connect 2
Missing 3
New 4

Note:

By default, this measure reports the above-mentioned States while indicating the discovery state of a port. However, in the graph of this measure, states will be represented using their corresponding numeric equivalents only.

The detailed diagnosis of the Overall status measure reports the Time, ID, Slot ID, Chassis ID, Fabric ID, Port Type, Role Type, Network Type, Transport Type and Peer details of the I/O module fabric ports.

layer 1 test 6 measure 2 dd

Figure 1 : The detailed diagnosis of the Overall status measure of the Chassis I/O Module Fabric Ports Test