Cisco & Nutanix Solution Hardware - M8

In a previous post - we detailed out some of the components that are available for the UCS Nutanix solution which included M6 and M7 generation of servers. This post will dig deeper into the M8 platforms which have recently been released. There are a lot of exciting updates here so let's get right into it.

Cisco UCS M8

Recently, Cisco released support for the latest generation of servers with UCS M8. There were a lot of new things that were introduced as part of this hardware released which was actually broken up into two different phases.

UCS M8 Phase 1

Let's start with the new and highly anticipated release for AMD CPU support. This is the first time that Cisco & Nutanix introduced AMD CPUs to the lineup and Cisco is one of the first OEMs to to have qualified the newest generation of AMD CPUs with the Nutanix software. Cisco made the decision to start with AMD's 5th Generation AMD EPYC Turin CPU which offers a lot of different options for core count and clock speed. The finer details of the individual CPU options (and other components) can be found in the ordering guides for the C225 and X215c.

• Cisco UCS C225 Series: 1U Rackmount Servers
  • HCINX225C-M8SN or UCSC-C225-M8SN
    • CPU Family: Turin
    • CPU Sockets: Single
    • Memory: DDR5 up to 3TB
    • Drive Type: NVMe SSD (U.2/U.3)
    • Node Capacity: Up to 153TB
• Cisco UCS X215c Series: Modular Servers
  • HCIXNX215C-M8SN or UCSX-X215C-M8SN
    • CPU Family: Turin
    • CPU Sockets: Single or Dual
    • Memory: DDR5 up to 6TB
    • Drive Type: NVMe SSD (U.2/U.3)
    • Node Capacity: Up to 92TB

A few things are worth noting with the above AMD Turin configurations:

• The C225 is a single socket only
• The X215c can be configured with dual sockets, however, if the total core count exceeds 256, the configuration is limited to a single socket. For example, you are allowed to configure the server with dual socket 96 cores but can only configure with single socket 160 core. This is a Nutanix software contraint - a single server cannot exceed 256 cores.
• The X215c can support more memory if dual sockets are configured (3TB for single socket, 6TB for dual sockets)

The other part of the M8 Phase 1 release included the latest generation of Intel CPUs which is the 6th Generation Granite Rapids and includes the C220, C240, and X210c.

• Cisco UCS C220 Series: 1U Rackmount Servers

  • HCINX220C-M8E3S or UCSC-C220-M8E3S
    • CPU Family: Granite Rapids
    • CPU Sockets: Dual
    • Memory: DDR5 up to 8TB
    • Drive Type: NVMe SSD (E3.S)
    • Node Capacity: Up to 244TB

• Cisco UCS C240 Series: 2U Rackmount Servers

  • HCINX240C-M8SX or UCSC-C240-M8SX
    • CPU Family: Granite Rapids
    • CPU Sockets: Dual
    • Memory: DDR5 up to 8TB
    • Drive Type: SAS/SATA SSD (U.2/U.3 - includes self encrypting drives [SEDs])
    • Node Capacity: Up to 370TB

• Cisco UCS X210c Series: Modular Servers

  • HCIXNX210C-M8SN or UCSX-210C-M8SN
    • CPU Family: Granite Rapids
    • CPU Sockets: Single or Dual
    • Memory: DDR5 up to 8TB
    • Drive Type: NVMe SSD (E3.S)
    • Node Capacity: Up to 137TB

A few things are worth noting with the above Intel Granite Rapids configurations:

• The C240 can be fully maximized with 24x 15.3TB drives to provide the maximum raw capacity allowed by Nutanix of 370TB.
• The E3.S drives do not currently support self-encrypting capabilities.

UCS M8 Phase 2

As mentioned above - the M8 release was broken up into two phases. Below are the nodes that were included in Phase 2.

Let's start with the Intel line:

• Cisco UCS C220 Series: 1U Rackmount Servers

  • HCINX220C-M8S or UCSC-C220-M8S
    • CPU Family: Granite Rapids
    • CPU Sockets: Single or Dual
    • Memory: DDR5 up to 8TB
    • Drive Type: SAS/SATA SSD (U.2/U.3 - includes self-encrypting drives [SEDs])
    • Node Capacity: Up to 153TB

• Cisco UCS C240 Series: 2U Rackmount Servers

  • HCINX240C-M8E3S or UCSC-C240-M8E3S

    • CPU Family: Granite Rapids
    • CPU Sockets: Dual
    • Memory: DDR5 up to 8TB
    • Drive Type: NVMe SSD (E3.S)
    • Node Capcity: Up to 370TB

  • HCINX240C-M8L or UCSC-C240-M8L

    • CPU Family: Granite Rapids
    • CPU Sockets: Dual
    • Memory: DDR5 up to 8TB
    • Drive Type: SAS 7.2K HDD & SAS/SATA SSD
    • Node Capcity: Up to 384TB

• Cisco UCS X210c Series: Modular Servers

  • HCIXNX210C-M8SN or UCSX-210C-M8SN
    • CPU Family: Granite Rapids
    • CPU Sockets: Single or Dual
    • Memory: DDR5 up to 8TB
    • Drive Type: SAS/SATA SSD (U.2/U.3 - includes self-encrypting drives [SEDs])
    • Node Capacity: Up to 92TB

A few things are worth noting with the above Intel Granite Rapids configurations from Phase 2:

• The C240 with E3.S drives (non-HCI) can technically support up to 32 E3.S drives. For Nutanix, however, there are software constraints that limit the node to 24 total drives.
• The E3.S drives do not currently support self-encrypting capabilities.
• The C240 with HDDs:
  • This configuration is a great use case for Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS).
  • This configuration is a good option for remote sites that may need cheaper storage capacity without the performance.
  • Note: The front of the server shows 12 drives, however, 4 additional drives can be configured in the mid-plane bringing the total up to 16.
  • Because this is an HDD server, it is considered "Hybrid" which means there are also SSDs that need to be configured for the caching tier.

And last but not least, Phase 2 of the AMD line:

• Cisco UCS X215c Series: Modular Servers
  • HCIXNX215C-M8SN or UCSX-X215C-M8SN
    • CPU Family: Turin
    • CPU Sockets: Single or Dual
    • Drive Type: NVMe SSD (E3.S)
    • Node Capacity: Up to 122TB

The big thing worth nothing with the above phase 2 AMD E3.S configuration is that it supports up 8x E3.S drives vs. its counterpart on the Intel side of up to 9x E3.S drives.

Why? We don't ask why - we just go with it.
J/K - for whatever reason the 5th slot in the server chassis isn't connected to the CPU root complex. ¯\(ツ)/¯

The above AMD E3.S configuration was made orderable at the end of October and is fresh off the press!

With the above releases and configurations, Cisco now has a wide array of compute nodes that are supported with Nutanix which includes both Intel and AMD CPUs, providing customers more flexibility and choice. And before you ask - yes, the M8 platforms can also be retrofitted.

An important note with the UCS M8 servers, specifically for support with Nutanix, is that the deployment modes supported are Intersight Managed Mode (IMM) and Intersight Standalone Mode (ISM). There is currently no UCS Managed Mode (UMM) support.

Here is a look at the servers themselves: