Collect Cisco United Computing System (UCS) server metrics

Collect Cisco UCS server metrics with the Collector for Kubernetes.

Cisco AI PODs are integrated with Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) servers. You can monitor the performance of Cisco UCS servers with Cisco Intersight, an IT operation and server management platform.

This solution uses the intersight-otel tool to convert Cisco Intersight API metrics and API calls to OpenTelemetry metrics. The intersight-otel tool sends the newly converted OpenTelemetry metrics to the Splunk Distribution of the OpenTelemetry Collector, which in turn sends the metrics to Splunk Observability Cloud.

To collect Cisco Intersight metrics, you must install the Splunk Distribution of the OpenTelemetry Collector for Kubernetes to monitor Cisco AI PODs. For instructions, see Install the Collector for Kubernetes to monitor Cisco AI PODs.

Based on your environment, create a new project or namespace for the Cisco Intersight integration:
Kubernetes
kubectl create ns intersight-otel
Red Hat OpenShift
oc new-project intersight-otel oc project intersight-otel

Add the Cisco Intersight API key as a Kubernetes secret. The following example command assumes that your Intersight key ID is in /tmp/intersight.keyid.txt and your Intersight key is in /tmp/intersight.pem:

Kubernetes

kubectl create secret generic intersight-api-credentials \ 
    --from-file=intersight-key-id=/tmp/intersight.keyid.txt \ 
    --from-file=intersight-key=/tmp/intersight.pem -n <namespace>

Red Hat OpenShift

oc create secret generic intersight-api-credentials \ 
    --from-file=intersight-key-id=/tmp/intersight.keyid.txt \ 
    --from-file=intersight-key=/tmp/intersight.pem

Apply the manifest to your Kubernetes cluster:

Kubernetes

kubectl apply -f ./intersight/values.yaml

Red Hat OpenShift

oc apply -f ./intersight/values.yaml

Metrics

The following metrics are available for Cisco UCS servers. These metrics fall under the default metric category. The intersight-otel tool creates OpenTelemetry metrics based on Cisco Intersight metrics and API calls, as noted in the following table.

For more information on these metrics, see Supported Metrics and the API reference in the Cisco Intersight documentation.


OpenTelemetry metric name	Cisco Intersight metric name	Description
`intersight.advisories.nonsecurity.affected_objects`	N/A, mapped to API call	Count of Intersight-managed objects affected by non-security advisories.
`intersight.advisories.security.affected_objects`	N/A, mapped to API call	Count of Intersight-managed objects affected by security advisories.
`intersight.advisories.security.count`	N/A, mapped to API call	Count of security advisories.
`intersight.alarms.count`	N/A, mapped to API call	Count of unacknowledged critical alarms.
`intersight.ucs.fan.speed`	`hw.fan.speed`	Fan speed in revolutions per minute (rpm).
`intersight.ucs.host.power`	`hw.host.power`	Instantaneous power consumed by the entire physical host, in Watts.
`intersight.ucs.host.temperature`	`hw.temperature`	Temperature in degrees Celsius. Server CPU temperature metrics are available only when the host is in a powered-on state. In case of a transceiver, it is the operating temperature. Transceiver temperature metric requires an advantage license and is available only if a transceiver is present and DOM (Digital optical monitoring) is enabled.
`intersight.ucs.network.receive.rate`	`hw.network.io_receive` divided by `hw.network.io_receive_duration`	Received network traffic rate, in bytes per second.
`intersight.ucs.network.transmit.rate`	`hw.network.io_transmit` divided by `hw.network.io_transmit_duration`	Transmitted network traffic rate, in bytes per second.
`intersight.ucs.network.utilization.average`	`hw.network.bandwidth.utilization_all`	Average utilization of the network bandwidth.
`intersight.vm_count`	N/A, mapped to API call	Count of virtual machines.

Next steps

If needed, set up data collection for your other Cisco AI PODs components. For instructions, see Collect metrics and metadata from Cisco AI PODs.

After you set up data collection for Cisco AI PODs components, you can monitor their performance using built-in experiences in Splunk Observability Cloud. For more information, see Monitor the performance of your Cisco AI PODs.