How Discovery Works
The data can be collected via two modes: Cisco UCS Manager and Cisco Intersight.
When collecting via Cisco UCS Manager, during every collection interval the inventory of the UCS Manager is collected, along with the statistics for the metrics being reported. This is performed using the Cisco UCS XML APIs, which by default are performed over TCP port 443 with SSL encryption.
The collection interval is specified in the IO Cisco UCS integration configuration. UCSM itself has five functional areas that can have different settings for statistics collection: chassis, server, adapter, port, and FEX (IOM). These collection intervals are configured from UCSM (“Modify Collection Policy”), and can be set to any of the following values:
30 seconds
1 minute
2 minutes
5 minutes
UCSM will only update statistics at these intervals, therefore IO will only be able to receive updated metrics at these intervals. For example, if the UCS collection policy for adapters is configured for five minutes but IO is configured to poll UCS every one minute, metrics will only be updated every five minutes.
The steps to configure the UCS Manager Collection Intervals are as follows:
In the UCS Manager Navigation pane, click the Admin tab.
In the Admin tab, expand All > Stats Management > Stats.
Right-click the first policy (“Collection Policy Chassis”) and select “Modify Collection Policy”.
In the “Modify Collection Policy” dialog box, set the Collection Interval to match the Poll Interval configured in the Cisco UCS integration in IO.
Repeat steps 3 and 4 for the remaining four policies.
The following UCS Collection Policies are currently used:
Chassis
Port
Server
The timestamps reported to IO are the timestamps provided by IO when it scheduled the discovery/metric collection, and not necessarily the timestamp of when UCS internally performed the statistics collection.
When collecting through Cisco Intersight, during every collection interval the inventory of Cisco Intersight is collected along with the metrics. This is performed using Intersight APIs along with groupBy telemetry API.
The collection can be configured at the following intervals:
1 minute
5 minutes
10 minutes
15 minutes
30 minutes
1 hour
To get started via Cisco Intersight, an API key consisting of Key ID and Secret Key is needed along with a unique Intersight Nickname chosen by the user to differentiate various Intersight modules.