Specifications

A Principled Technologies test report 7
Cisco UCS B200 M3 Blade Server:
Uncompromised virtual desktop performance
WHAT WE TESTED
About the Cisco UCS B200 M3 Blade Server
The Cisco UCS B200 M3 Blade Server is an enterprise-class blade server powered by the
new Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 series to deliver high performance and outstanding I/O
throughput for your applications. Supporting up to 384 GB of RAM with 24 DIMM slots, the
Cisco UCS M200 M3 has expansive memory capabilities to support your heavy workloads. The
B200 M3 blade will support a configuration of up to 768 GB when 32GB DIMMs are available
later this year.
To learn more, see Appendix A for more detailed hardware specifications, or visit
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps12288/index.html.
About the Cisco UCS Manager
The Cisco UCS Manager enables unified, embedded management that integrates the
management of both software and hardware on the Cisco UCS solution. The UCS Manager
centralizes server management, making it easier in several key ways. First, role-based
management makes it easy to assign unique management roles to different administrators (i.e.,
server, network, or storage admins) so that each can be assigned his or her own unique policies
and permissions, while still being part of an integrated management environment. Policy-based
provisioning provides managers with the ability to create service profile templates that they
apply to one or 100 servers, making it easy to apply consistent policies. The Cisco USC Manager
makes server management less about managing isolated, single hardware components and
more about managing many hardware components (supported up to 20 chassis or 160 blades)
as a single management domain. The use of service profiles allows system administrators to
allocate and reallocate server resources, which the UCS Manager views as “raw computing
capacity.” This way, server capacity allocation becomes more dynamic and efficient, with
managers able to deploy and reallocate server resources in a matter of minutes.
To learn more about the Cisco UCS Manager, visit
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps10281/index.html.
About VMware View 5
VMware designed its View 5 desktop virtualization software to simplify IT management
of virtual desktops from within the cloud. A centralized interface allows administrators to
manage upwards of tens of thousands of end-users. An administrator can easily manage settings
such as policy enforcement, performance monitoring, connection brokering, and provisioning,
to name a few. The result includes improved security, less costly management, and faster
provisioning and maintenance of desktop images and applications. The end-user enjoys easier
access to his or her View desktop from a variety of locations, less downtime, a customizable
desktop, and robust multimedia capabilities. In our tests, we implemented a new feature of
View 5, that of PCoIP Optimization Controls. This feature helps IT administrators to better