A quick post on one of the more helpful tools I’ve used this year is the “UCS Tech Specs” app for IOS.  This app is not an official Cisco-developed tool but was created by Vallard Benincosa, a Consulting Systems Engineer at Cisco; you can read about the release of the tool on Vallard’s blog, “Vallard’s Tech Notes.”  The UCS Tech Specs app is extremely handy as a quick reference tool when I am sitting in a meeting with a customer who has questions about UCS specifications.

The interface is simple and intuitive allowing you to navigate quickly to the different components that are part of a UCS system.  You are also able to easily drill down into the details of any component, allowing you to access, for example memory and processor options for any blade or rack-mount server.

From a pre-sales perspective, I’ve found it helpful to be access information regarding promotional sales bundles, such as Cisco’s SmartPlay Bundles.  It’s allowed me to feed information quickly to the account sales team when I’ve been invited to a customer sales call.

The app also provides access to solution guides and resources such as the UCS Simulator.  These are essentially redirects to the relevant Cisco webpages, displayed within the app itself.

The one downside to the app is that the information is only updated as Vallard has time, although it seems that he does a reasonable job of updating the information in the app on a regular basis; the last update occurred in October.  Here’s to hoping that in 2013, Vallard is able to spend more time refining and revving this useful tool.

Related articles

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