Commonly collected items

The entire tree

To capture the entire management information tree, in the feed configuration set the classId to topSystem and provide a filename for xmlOutput. Do this only to explore available data, not for regular collection. Multiple collection steps for distinct classes is far more scalable than fetching the entire tree to parse for data.

Basic inventory

The most common inventory queries are for computeRack child classes (which derive from an abstract class, computePhysical) along with computeBlade.

Provisioned blades

To determine whether a blade is acting as a server or bare metal, you can use the assignedToDn field. When assignedToDn is set it means that a service profile, or distinguished name , has been associated to the blade.

Active blades

The operPower attribute indicates the operational power state of a blade. This, combined with assignedToDn, will indicate whether the blade is in use.

Cores in use

The value for numOfCoresEnabled represents the number of cores in use, and may be less than numOfCores. When not all cores are in use, it is likely due to one of the following reasons:

• An end user is being charged for core use and does not require all the available cores.
• Software installed on the blade is licensed per core and the total number of cores exceeds the license.

Ignore operState

The operState attribute is internal to Cisco UCS operations. It holds various error states. For example, when discovery fails on bare metal, operState is set to “failed discovery.” You should rely on assignedToDn, which would not be set in this case, and ignore operState.

Event-based collection

There are audit log and event log objects in the model that you can collect. Audit logs contain user-driven change events while the event log contains system-driven change events. These logs can also be accessed from the UCS Manager UI.

Serial numbers

These are reliable unique identifiers when available.