EMC UIM/P 4.1 – what’s new?

EMC released new version of UIM/P – 4.1 on March 25th 2014 and it’s in VCE RCM’s now.

It contains whole bunch of new cool features:

Support for Asset-Based discovery – UIM/P supports these Converged Hardware System types:

• Vblock 7xx
• Vblock 3xx
• Vblock 2xx
• VSPEX
• Custom

A Converged Hardware System is no longer strictly dependent on hardware. The assets that will comprise each Converged Hardware System need to be planned and configured. You can then use UIM/P to discover the individual compute, storage, and network assets, from which Converged Hardware Systems can then be assembled.

These rules apply:

• A Converged Hardware System can contain multiple compute resources; for example, two UCSMs or eight C-Series blades. Mixing of C-Series and UCS is not allowed.
• Converged Hardware Systems can share arrays, switches, and UCSMs.
• A Converged Hardware System always consists of one storage array, two SAN switches (if applicable), two Ethernet switches (if applicable), and multiple UCSMs or multiple C-series blades.
• This release of UIM/P only supports standalone C-series. It does not support standalone C-series combined with UCSM.
• Storage arrays, switches, and UCSMs can be shared across Converged Hardware Systems. C-series blades cannot be shared.
• If a UCSM is shared across Converged Hardware Systems, blades are allocated to the services on a “first come, first serve” basis.
• When you assemble assets into a Converged Hardware System, UIM/P verifies the combined assets to make sure the physical topology supports it.
• Only compute assets can be added to a Converged Hardware System after initial creation.
• UIM/P presents a choice of isolation zone, based on the isolation zones that are common to the combined assets in each Converged Hardware System.
• A Converged Hardware System with a VMAX and C-Series combination is not currently supported.

Support for Linux OS installation – In addition to ESX and ESXi operating systems, this release of UIM/P enables you to install the following Linux operating systems into blades:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• Cent OS
• Oracle Enterprise Linux

The EMC Unified Infrastructure Manager/Provisioning Support Matrix lists the supported operating systems and versions. If applicable to the operating system, make sure you download the operating system installation media with add-ons. For example, in the case of Red Hat, download the Enterprise version and not the Standard version; otherwise, the add-ons will not be installed.

Support for Automatic storage port selection – By default, UIM/P provides manual storage port selection. With this release, UIM/P also supports automatic storage port selection, whereby UIM/P will select the storage ports to be used by a service.

To enable automatic storage port selection, contact VCE Support.

Support for asset operations and reports – This release of UIM/P allows you to run operations that are specific to the type of asset. You can also run reports on a specific asset that allows you to view asset details and any associated configuration properties.
Asset operations are for expert users that fully understand the operations effect on the configuration. Invoke these operations with extreme caution as they may impact existing services and cause unintended data loss or data unavailability.

Appliance deployment support — ESXi 5.5 – This release supports deployment of the UIM/P appliance on a VMware vCenter™ Server running ESXi 5.5. -4.5.x VCE RCM train supports ESXi 5.5 on Advanced Management Pod.

VMware vCenter Orchestrator 5.5 support – This release of UIM/P supports VMware vCenter Orchestrator 5.5

VSPEX support – EMC UIM/P has received EMC VSPEX certification and is now EMC VSPEX LabsValidated. In addition to supporting VCE Vblock Systems, UIM/P now provides support for the discovery and management of EMC VSPEX.

Support for Multiple UCSs sharing the same storage array – this solution is not a VCE standard currently and will require exception if you need to implement it.

Enhancements and changes to UIM/P performance – This release of UIM/P includes performance optimization for the following functionality:

• Service provisioning
• Service decommissioning
• Synchronizing services with VMware vCenter™

Which feature is coolest for you? Personally my vote goes to Linux OS install!

(c) Zbigniew ‘Ziggy’ Misiak