Cisco has a new edge computing platform. The Cisco UCS XE9305 is the company’s newest generation edge computing platform. The first compute node for it is the Cisco UCS XE130c M8, based on the Intel Xeon 6 SoC with support for E3.S and M.2 SSDs, along with a low-profile card slot to integrate AI accelerators like the NVIDIA L4 GPU.
Cisco UCS XE9305 3U Edge Server Launched
The chassis itself is 3U tall, 19″ wide, but only 18″ deep, meaning it can fit into a variety of edge racks. Like many telecom or retail edge boxes we have reviewed, this has all of the cabling in the front of the unit to make it easy to service.
The first compute node is the Cisco UCS XE130c M8. We can see four of them in the system above, but up to five can be installed in the chassis. Each can have three E3.S SSDs in the I/O focused verison, but then there is an option for four E3.S SSDs. Inside, there is also ano option for two M.2 SSDs. There is also a low profile slot for more networking. Of course, given the era we are in also it can support low profile GPUs like the NVIDIA L4.
Inside, there is an Intel Xeon 6 SoC with either 12, 20, or 32 cores. This is interesting, as the higher-core-count Xeon 6 SoC parts are expected to arrive in the market this quarter. The memory in these systems is four channels of DDR5-6400 with eight slots, so up to 2 DPC.
There are also two Cisco UCS Edge Chassis Management Controllers. Cisco is using 25GbE in this generation to connect the nodes. Each node has two front-facing 10Gbase-T ports, but it also gets two midplane 25GbE ports that connect to the integrated switches on the chassis management controllers.
The chassis gets two power supplies for redundancy. Each is 2.4kW.
On the rear, there are only fans. Cisco says this system can be tuned to run at 40dba, which is awesome.
We found a picture of the security Bezel, and it is a big one!
Overall, a fairly neat system.
Final Words
This is a higher-density blade chassis option for edge deployments. Something like the HPE ProLiant DL145 Gen11 is designed for higher-end single nodes, but this is a denser deployment, especially with the integrated switches. It is also a multi-node UCS system that is more integrated than we saw in our older Cisco UCS C4200 Review. Apparently, we also have another piece queued where the Dell multi-node chassis makes a cameo. Still, this looks absolutely awesome.
How close is the relationship between these and their “Intersight” SaaS thing?
Is that merely strongly suggested and vigorously upsold; but there’s a more or less normal set of PCs and a reasonably typical BMC of some sort in there; or is it more of an azure local style chunk of cloud that incidentally sits locally?
Also, “40s dBA – at < 20% load" according to their datasheet; which certainly beats the "scream vigorously no matter what" fan profile you run into with some systems; but sounds like whoever shares an office with it had better hope IT isn't getting great utilization.