Cisco has added Redfish? support to IMC to extend our unified and open API to manage server components and to help customers integrate solutions within their existing tool chains.

Guest Blogger:David Soper, Technical Marketing Engineer, UCS Management

Last month Cisco released version 3.0 of the Integrated Management Controller (IMC). This new release makes the management of standalone Cisco UCS? C-Series servers simpler, and it enhances the programmability of Cisco UCS with improvements to the APIs. IMC 3.0 includes support for the new standards-based Redfish API. (IMC 3.0 adheres to version 1.0.1 of the specification.)

Why Redfish Is Important

Redfish is an open industry standard that specifies a RESTful interface based on the Open Data Protocol (OData) which utilizes HTTPS and JSON to transfer data. This standard was developed by the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) with the participation of many server vendors, including Cisco. It is ideal for cloud and web-based infrastructures, which typically have large quantities of servers in heterogeneous environments. Redfish also provides developers a familiar and comfortable suite of protocols.

The API is designed to be extensible. Features that are not explicitly supported by the Redfish API can still be made discoverable and addressable. Many common management tasks can be automated with Redfish, and additional automation can also be performed with the IMC Unified API and IMC Python SDK from Cisco.

Redfish In Action

I created this new demo video, so you could see how Redfish works with IMC 3.0 and the Python SDK:

Click on Arrow to Start the Demo Video

The Future of Redfish

Redfish is an important industry standard for infrastructure management that will continue to evolve. The DTMF has established the Redfish Developer Hub. They are also working with Alliance Partners, such as Cisco, and OEMs to "leverage and expand Redfish". For example, the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) is developing Swordfish, which builds upon Redfish's local storage management capabilities. There are other extensions, such as Chinook, that are also being developed.

Cisco is a member of the DMTF leadership committee. We will continue to be involved in the development and review of these standards as they emerge, and we will adopt the standards when they are formalized. We'll also look for ways to continue to extend Redfish with the UCS unified API and SDKs, just as we have done with the IMC 3.0 release.

If you'd like more information on this topic, including links to the programmer's guide and example code, please read this blog on the UCS Communities site.