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Simplifying Compute Management - What features help me manage data center servers?

Estimated time to read: 6 minutes

  • Originally Written: February, 2026

I'm in the middle of building a lab environment with some colleagues and working a lot with different UCS server form factors/generations. I've decided to write this post similar to the Simplfying ACI post to document some of the features I like about Intersight and UCS in case you can also find them useful.

The features

Common management for blade and rack

Intersight is the platform used to configure and manage UCS servers. It's available as a SaaS portal or an on-prem VM. In our environment we use the SaaS portal to manage all servers, blade and rack, across multiple generations.

Blade servers are connected through the Fabric Interconnects (think of them as controllers which look like network switches), while rack servers can be either connected to the Fabric Interconnects (FIs) or directly (standalone) to Intersight. We have a mix of FI connected and standalone connected rack servers.

We have also just installed a VAST storage cluster running on UCS rack servers which are directly connected to Intersight.

Naming conventions in the screenshot above

  • UCSX is a blade connected to the Fabric Interconnects (e.g. UCSX-210C-M8)
  • UCSC is a rack server (e.g. UCSC-C220-M6S)
  • The last characters represent the generation (e.g. M5, M6, M8)

The connection between the server and Intersight uses a Device ID and Claim Code model. First select the target you want to claim and then enter the details you find either in the CIMC (rack server out of band management UI) or through the equivalent in the Fabric Interconnect

Monitoring Requests

You can monitor all requests in Intersight by clicking the icon with the Circle/Tick in the top right-hand corner. This includes the OS install and firmware upgrade process below.

OS install

Our VAST storage cluster contains 8 x UCSC-C225-M8N rack servers and during the deployment for testing I ended up rebuilding the cluster multiple times. This might seem like a big hassle but I found the OS reinstall process very simple as it allowed me to reinstall the OS across multiple servers in parallel.

  • Select the server for which you want to install the OS
  • There are three options to configure the OS install (hands free)
    • Provide a custom config file
    • Use an ISO with config already built-in (e.g. the VAST ISO I was using)
      • No additional config required
    • Use a Cisco validated template
      • This link has the list of validated templates
      • The template script is provided and you simply need to enter the details
  • Start the deployment and wait until the servers come online
  • Monitor the progress using the requests button shown above

Firmware management

I've been focusing on networking for a while now and have not kept up to date with server management. So it was a nice surprise when we were setting up this new lab that we could upgrade/downgrade all the server firmware through Intersight.

  • Select the servers which should be upgraded (these need to be the same type if you want to upgrade multiple at a time)
  • Select the firmware (thumbs up is the latest recommended)
  • Click upgrade
  • Monitor the progress using the requests button shown above

Security advisories, Field notices, and End of Sale/Support

Since Intersight pulls all the inventory of the devices as soon as they connect it can cross-check this with various advisories and field notices on cisco.com. You can click the megaphone icon in the top right-hand corner to see what devices are affected and actions that need to be taken.

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