Boulder release got delivered in multiple phases from August 2022 to December 2022. Below blog summarizes the list of features delivered as part of this release.
G720 switches
UCP CI introduced new FC switch option, Brocade G720
Brocade G720 brings in several benefits like 64G FC ports and better bundling price options. There are sales promotions on G720 as well that can benefit our customers. Brownfield deployment option is available where customers can add G720 to existing G620 fabric. Green field deployments (All G720 fabric) are supported as well. This also helps to address 32G SFP shortage situation.
GPUs
Long awaited GPU options are now available on CPQ with UCP solutions. As DS120 G2 is a 1U compute node, it only supports A2 GPU. Below table summarizes the options
Nexus new spine / leaf switches
Current Cisco Spine and Leaf are due for refresh as cisco is gearing up for their EOS announcement. New Spine (93600CD-GX) and Leaf (93180YC-FX3) switches are qualified with UCP solutions. Though new Spine/Leaf switch qualification is complete, because of supply chain issues old Spine/Leaf switches will continue to be shipped as part of UCP CI solution till Q1CY23. Below table summarizes the planned transition
The new leaf switch is pretty identical to existing leaf switch with same port count and port bandwidth and totally backward compatible for UCP CI solution. New spine brings in additional bandwidth with few 400G ports, which are not available with old Spine switch (9332C)
Cisco switch
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Current Switch
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Planned Switch
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Spine switch
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9332C
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93600CD-GX
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Leaf Switch
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93180YC-FX
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93180YC-FX3
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iSCSI Boot
As of today UCP compute nodes can choose to boot via SATADOM/M.2 or Network boot via FC SAN. Network boot can be performed via iSCSI as well. This iSCSI boot is now qualified with UCP systems and is fully supported. This particular network boot options eliminates the need for SAN Fabric, thus reducing the capex.