Authors: Farhan Ahmed Nadeem, Prasenjit Sarkar
Available from Packt Publishing, http://bit.ly/1dAu5cx.
What is this book about?
This book covers all the pertinent details of the Cisco UCS servers, both the B series and the C series. In addition to going into all of the nuances of the UCS series, it also covers a lot of the concepts on the peripheral that you need to know to fully understand UCS, like storage protocols and Nexus 1000v switching.
Who should read this book?
This book is at an interesting place where you could pick it up if you don’t know anything about servers, but you could be very experienced and still get a lot out of the book. I have a good amount of server experience with several other vendors, but no experience with Cisco UCS. Someone with server and storage experience, but has not yet worked with UCS, is bound to get the most out of the book.
What did I like about this book?
The central content of the book was very good. What really put it over the top for me was the inclusion of how to setup a virtual lab to “test drive” this technology. Additionally, I really enjoyed the addition of other UCS related topics, like the Nexus 1000v. In the Nexus 1000v, the authors took on a pretty challenging concept and did an excellent job with explanations and visuals.
What didn’t I like about this book?
I really would have liked to see a “design recommendations” section of the book that could possibly feed into a buyers guide. Really understanding the threshold of where it makes economical and design sense to move from the C series to the B series is probably the only thing I found myself still wanting to know after reading the book.
Should you buy this book?
Absolutely! I got exactly what I wanted out of the book, plus had the additional bonus of some great content outside of the Cisco UCS. I would highly recommend this book if you are even remotely considering the UCS hardware.