#CiscoChampion Radio is a podcast series by Cisco Champions as technologists, hosted by Cisco's Amy Lewis (@CommsNinja). This week we're talking about UCS Invicta.

Listento the Podcast

Featured Guests:
Cisco Champions: Trevor Roberts (@vmtrooper), Matt Oswalt (@mierdin)
Cisco Subject Matter Experts: Maxwell Riggsbee, Todd Brannon

Highlights:
How Invicta will allow UCS infrastructure to deliver resourcing
Four elements that will allow Invicta to transition into UCS in short and long term
Details on integration to date
Storage/bandwidth plans for Invicta going forward
When further integration will be available
Applications ideal for Invicta

Transcripts:
CommsNinjaOkay gallery, start thinking up those questions.
that1guynickI'm digging the history. Anxious to hear where Whiptail plays in
Guest 7The questions you will publicly answer
@gallifreyanWhy did Invicta come to market without direct integration into the UCS hardware/network platform? How far out is that?
CommsNinjaThank you for that caveat Aaron.
@gallifreyanHow does it compare to/go up against the non-internal Fusion-io solutions?
Guest 7As somebody who knows nothing about Invicta, is this a flash san like product or a server side cache product?
@gallifreyanGuest7: I believe it's basically a flash san that connects to hosts by iscsi or FC (not FCoE).
Guest 7Is the use case mainly application cache and therefore another storage medium will be required?
@gallifreyanthink 24 Micron consumer-grade MLC SSDs in a C240M3 type server.
Guest 7What apps and solutions does Cisco plan to target with Invicta
Guest 7How long until it is in a Vblock and Flexpod
that1guynickQ: I think everyone wants to understand positioning, and what arena Invicta is attempting to do battle in?
vmtrooper@gallifreyan: when you say integration into UCS hardware, do you mean into UCSM?
CommsNinjanice use of boldface there Nick.LOL.#FontChampions
@gallifreyanvmtrooper: UCSM isn't hardware. I mean like FCoE or iSCSI on the FI.
that1guynick/flex
vmtrooper@gallifreyan: understood, I meant for control similar to the rest of the components
that1guynickmy chat skills will never reach those of Amy's hashtagging skills
CommsNinjatakes a bow
vsential #LikeABoss
that1guynickThose of you with 30k-40k+ tweets is staggering to me
williamcabanAny plans to support RESTful or any kind of API @ UCS Invicta?
CommsNinjaWas thinking that James.
@gallifreyanvmtrooper: I assume that these "routers" have visibility from UCSM/XMLAPI as any supported hardware would.
Guest 7Any plans to support RESTful or any kind of API @ UCS Invicta?  +1
@gallifreyanTo be honest, I came out of the webcast with "1) UCS is cool" "3) Flash is fast" "buy our stuff" but not much for step 2 in there.
@gallifreyanI'd like to know what 2) is and how it backs up "buy our stuff"
CommsNinjaGood questions-Trevor and Matt will pick some of these up I'm sure.
Erik BussinkQ: For a VDI solution like in a single UCS Chassis, could we see a UCS Invicta in a Blade forma using ServiceProfile ?
@gallifreyangood question, Erik.
@gallifreyanit seems like right now the Invicta platform is kinda like a super-high-performance Equallogic.
williamcabanDoes the integration of UCS Invicta only as an "external" storage in the UCS FI's or can it be integrated as part of the same UCS management domain?
williamcaban(after all, these are C-Series M3 which we can integrate with Nexus 2232 and directly to the UCS FI's)
@gallifreyanwilliamcaban: It would be cool if they were able to serve FCoE/iSCSI back out over the VIC.
williamcaban@gallifreyan yeap!
@gallifreyanThat should only require OS interface mapping changes in theory.
williamcabanyeap, in *nix world we call that a Kernel module
@gallifreyanwell, I'm thinking a little bit higher level... i.e. identifying and mapping FCoE/iSCSI interfaces that are exposed by the VIC
@gallifreyan I saw some of this with 3PAR back in 2001-2002. Little UNIX IO handling drivers that had to know how to reach iscsi or fc
@gallifreyanYep, it was me
@gallifreyanthey have a 2u or 3u rackmount san device
@gallifreyanplease don't compare Invicta to the internal PCIE solution... that's why I said non-internal.
vmtrooper@gallifreyan will clarify if it doesn't get answered
@gallifreyanhttp://www.fusionio.com/products/ion-accelerator/ is the product I'm thinking of.
that1guynickI'd just like to thank Cisco for finally making a storage play to dispel the annual rumors that Cisco was eyeing NetApp.
@gallifreyanDisclaimer: I use a couple hundred PCIe Fusion-io cards in Cisco UCS hardware... but I'm curious about where this goes up against Accelerator &thelike
@gallifreyanthanks vmtrooper
Guest 10-Works at Fusion-io
CommsNinjawho are you guest 10?
Guest 10@mborgen
that1guynickREVEAL YOURSELF!
CommsNinjaHai!
that1guynickhaha
CommsNinja LOL
@gallifreyanI think there's no answer yet to "how does this go up against Ion Accelerator" ... and I worry that it becomes vendor lock-in when it finally matures.
@gallifreyanWonder if invicta in an E-series form factor makes sense too.
williamcabanAre there any UCS Invicta design guides available? (i.e. design for VDI vs design for Oracle over UCS Invicta)
that1guynick Sounds a lot like the LSI/E-series NetApp play from a few years ago. Stupid-fast storage, without the overhead of a big array.
CommsNinjawe are 5-7 minutes from closing-any other questions?
williamcabanDoes the integration of UCS Invicta only as an "external" storage in the UCS FI's or can it be integrated as part of the same UCS management domain?
williamcaban(after all, these are C-Series M3 which we can integrate with Nexus 2232 and directly to the UCS FI's)
that1guynick...and how is that not external storage array?
that1guynickare we just dancing around that?
@gallifreyanI think the storage network is external, the management network is through UCSM
@gallifreyanI've been burned by "planned integrations" before.
Billyc5022Does Invicta site between UCS servers and a SAN ?
williamcabanis a network component... it stand besides... its a nice gadget... its time to refine the story (sorry)
@gallifreyanI think that's pretty much the case, williamcaban
@gallifreyanit's not between them
CommsNinjaokay we're wrapping! more questions for next time.
@gallifreyanit's on a san, over iscsi or fibre channel. So it'd be analogous in layout to any block storage device, I think.
@gallifreyanit's not a cache layer in front of the san though, if that was the concern.
williamcabanBut UCS Invicta will be ONLY available as a complement to UCS B-Series. It will NOT be available for third party environments!
@gallifreyanNot just B-Series, fwiw.
williamcabanOkay,@gallifreyan, good to know.
@gallifreyan - C-Series admin
williamcabanyes, Im here
CommsNinjaGreat questions, great discussion, thanks to one and all!
CommsNinjaNext week: UCS again-with community member and expert Scott Hanson.
CommsNinjaVolunteer early and often.
Guest 10Thanks Amy