1. Q&A
© 2015 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserv ed. This document is Cisco Public. Page 1 of 2
TechWiseTV Workshop: Technical Overview: Fifth
Generation Cisco Unified Computing System
August 16, 2017
Q. Can we touch upon the characteristics and use cases for the Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS)
trusted platform module (TPM) for M5? I am looking for reasons to argue against using SkyPort as a
Trusted System core with a non-VMware virtualization schema.
A. Skyport does use Intel TPM in their SkySecure server. TPM 2.0 on Cisco UCS provides Intel TXT (Trusted
Execution Technology) w here you can secure server by encrypting on TPM.
Q. Is the Supermicro SATA DOM drive available and supported?
A. No, w e are not planning to support the Supermicro SATA DOM. They w ere mainly used for read centric use
cases. Cisco UCS C200 M2 is much better for that and it supports the Serial Advanced Technology Attachment
(SATA), serial-attached SCSI (SAS) and nonvolatile memory express (NVME). All Cisco UCS M5 servers support 2
M2.
Q. Can the Cisco UCS C480 M5 Rack Server be configured with only 2 CPU?
A. Yes, you can buy single server node (2 CPU) or Dual server node (4 CPU). There w ill be limitations on the
number of PCIe slots supported w ith only 2 CPUs.
Q. Is there support for 1.8" drives like the Dell FX systems?
A. Not at this time.
Q. Do all the Cisco UCS M5 servers require an upgrade to UCS Manager 3.2?
A. As this is a new architecture all Cisco UCS M5 servers need UCS Manager 3.2 to support.
Q. Will all the current Cisco UCS M5 boards be usable with 3D XPoint or will a new motherboard be
required?
A. No, Cisco UCS M5 servers are pre-enabled for 3D XPoint w hen Intel starts supporting it.
Q. Is the Cisco UCS M series required when total RAM is over 768 MB or can each proc address 768 MB?
Can I use a Cisco UCS B480 M5 Blade Server with 4 proc and get 3TB of RAM without requiring the M
series?
A. Yes. Only the Intel CPUs that end in M support 1.5TB. You can have sockets and 3TB.
Q. We were told that Cisco UCS M-Series updates would not be required to support new models. The same
thing happened with the Cisco UCS M4 series where 2.2 was required.
A. New Cisco UCS M-Series is only required if there is major change in hardw are. Cisco UCS M5 is a new
architecture. With the Cisco UCS M-Series 2.2.4 w e supported server pack w here you do not need to upgrade
Cisco UCS M-Series for new er server refresh 9CPU/memory.

2. © 2017 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserv ed. This document is Cisco Public. Page 2 of 2
Q. Do we need Cisco UCS manager 3.2.x?
A. For Cisco UCS M5 server, yes. We also support Cisco UCS M5 Servers in Standalone Mode and HyperFlex
Connect. For Cisco UCS M5 Servers in Standalone (Non-UCS M-Series) Mode, the required Cisco Integrated
Management Controller IMC) SW version is 3.1 (or later). We are also supporting HyperFlex running 2.5.1 (or
later).
Q. How do you plan to capture and integrate Cisco UCS data versus applications data running on Cisco
UCS from VMWare?
A. Project Starship is connected to management plane (such as UCS M-Series, IMC SW). Operating
System/Hypervisor traffic remains onsite and is not managed via Project Starship.
Q. For sandboxing are you looking at offering anything in developer.cisco.com/sandbox or dCloud?
A. Yes, w e are planning for this option for demo purposes in the future.