Cisco Unified Computing System(UCS) is quite new compared to well know server providers like HP, Dell, IBM but during a short period of time it achieved quite a lot.
For anyone who wants to see what UCS is or just simply try out, Cisco has released UCS Emulator.
UCS emulator is pretty powerful tool it allows users to emulate UCS environment. So you can add your chassis, servers, CPUs, RAM, PSUs etc. The other interesting feature is that it allows to import hardware configuration from a live environment. It cannot import everything but is pretty close.
This post will show you how setup and use UCS emulator.
Before you start you’ll need to download UCS emulator also you need to install VMware Player or Workstation on your computer.
http://developer.cisco.com/web/unifiedcomputing/ucsemulatordownload download 7z file (you’ll need Cisco login to download it, just register). The emulator requires 1GB of RAM dedicated to the VM so make sure you have enough memory.
http://www.vmware.com/go/downloadplayer (again you need to login to download)
Extract the files from 7z archive to a new folder.
Install VMware player/Workstation this will require a reboot.
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