News Release

Cisco Evolves Data Center Architectural Strategy to Deliver Distinct Business Advantage

Delivers Key Innovations Across the Data Center Portfolio: New Virtual Security Gateway, Virtual WAAS, Second Generation Nexus Switches, and Expanded Unified Computing System Family
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Sep 14, 2010

SAN JOSE, Calif. – September 14, 2010 - Cisco today announced it has expanded its data center product and services portfolio and evolved its data center architecture to accelerate IT innovation, increase business value, and support new business models such as desktop virtualization and public or private 'clouds'.

Cisco introduced Unified Network Services, which are designed to deliver any network service in any environment and in any form factor, and Unified Fabric and Unified Computing enhancements to deliver increased deployment flexibility, simplicity and cost-effectiveness.  Cisco also unveiled new professional services that help partners and customers realize the full value of their Cisco Data Center Business Advantage investments. 

Together, Unified Network Services, Unified Computing and Unified Fabric form the foundation of an integrated architecture, the Cisco Data Center Business Advantage, designed to improve the efficiency and agility of both traditional and virtualized data center environments.  The Cisco Data Center Business Advantage helps customers link their IT investments to increased business return by accelerating the delivery of new services and revenue streams, improving profitability, and enabling transformative new business and IT models.

ANNOUNCEMENT HIGHLIGHTS

Introducing Cisco Unified Network Services.

Cisco Unified Network Services provide rich services in physical or virtual form factors, and offer flexibility and choice while delivering consistent policy-based provisioning, operational simplicity and workload portability across network, compute and cloud environments.  The first innovations introduced within Unified Network Services include:

  • The Cisco Virtual Security Gateway (VSG) is a virtual appliance designed to provide security policies at the virtual machine level within and across VLANS and shared compute infrastructures in the data center.  The Cisco Virtual Security Gateway addresses critical security and compliance requirements for virtualized data center and multi-tenant cloud environments by providing more granular, policy-based controls and activity monitoring based on virtual machine context.  Delivering operational simplicity, deployment flexibility, enhanced performance, and centralized management, the Cisco Virtual Security Gateway is implemented as software on the Nexus 1000V.
  • Cisco virtual Wide Area Application Services (vWAAS) are delivered via a virtual appliance that runs on the VMware ESX/ESXi hypervisor and Cisco Unified Computing System.TM or other x86 based servers.  It is the first cloud-ready WAN optimization solution that accelerates application delivery from private and virtual private cloud infrastructure, to ensure an optimal user experience. vWAAS enables cloud providers to offer rapid delivery of WAN optimization service with minimal network configuration, and reduces the cost and risk of migrating to private and virtual private clouds.

New Nexus 5548 Switch Increases Unified Fabric Performance and Scale.

Cisco Unified Fabric is a key building block for both traditional and virtualized data centers, unifying storage, data networking, and a data center class operating system to deliver seamless convergence, scalability and intelligence with reduced total cost of ownership and faster return on investment.  New innovations include:

  • The new one rack unit (RU), 48-port Cisco Nexus 5548 switch adds double the port density in the same footprint for improved cost-effectiveness, Unified Port technology (any port can be configured as Ethernet or Fibre Channel) on an expansion module slot for enhanced deployment flexibility, and Layer 3 and FabricPath support for increased scalability. 
  • Combined with the Nexus 5000, the new Cisco Nexus Fabric Extender 2224TP provides alternative deployment options for customers with low server density per rack.  The Cisco Nexus 2248TP can now also connect to the Nexus 7000 switch, providing large-scale 100M/1 Gigabit connectivity and simplified management.
  • New Catalyst 6513-E chassis with over 2 Terabit switching capacity and Catalyst 4900 software with EnergyWise 2.0 and Trust Sec provide investment protection and continued support for both traditional and virtual data centers.

New Unified Computing System Compact High Memory Blade Expands Unified Computing Portfolio

Cisco Unified Computing unites compute, network, virtualization and storage access with integrated management to deliver fluid workload mobility, optimized resource scaling, and operational simplicity.   In concert with Unified Fabric and Unified Network Services, Unified Computing is a foundational pillar for Cisco's Data Center Business Advantage framework.

  • The Unified Computing System portfolio now includes the UCS B230 M1 Blade Server, an Intel Xeon 6500/7500 processor series-based system which delivers increased memory, performance and density in a compact, half-width blade server.
  • This new blade expands the choices available to system architects within the UCS server family and is ideal for transaction-intensive database workloads, server virtualization and desktop virtualization.
  • Recent application benchmark testing with the Cisco Unified Computing System set nine performance world records, including two benchmarks with the new UCS B230 M1 Blade Server.

New Professional and Technical Services:

Cisco unveiled a suite of new services and capabilities that help customers realize the full value of their Cisco Data Center Business Advantage investments by accelerating time to deployment and reducing risk. New Cisco Desktop Virtualization Services enable customers to build and support a highly secure, scalable Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. The Cisco Unified Computing Services have been enhanced to improve application performance and operational management for new Cisco technologies. Cisco's Nexus, WAAS and Optimization Services have been enhanced to include Performance and Validation Testing. 

SUPPORTING QUOTES

  • "Cisco's architectural vision for the data center with the Data Center Business Advantage framework is aligned with our own and shows commitment to addressing emerging IT challenges," said Bob Butler, CIO, Hay Group.  "Mapping IT innovations to deliver business impact is very critical for us. With the Cisco Unified Computing System and Nexus solutions we've already achieved increased reliability, availability and cost savings. The new data center additions will provide an even greater business advantage as we continue to leverage virtualization and the cloud to maximize our data center investment."

  • "Cisco's new Unified Network Services and the innovations across the Unified Fabric and Unified Computing portfolios demonstrate our ability to deliver solutions designed to meet the dynamic needs of the modern data center," said John McCool, senior vice president, Data Center, Switching and Services Group, Cisco.  "Through the Cisco Data Center Business Advantage architectural framework, we're providing the industry's broadest and deepest technology innovations to address emerging IT challenges and deliver increased business value."

  • "With over 1,700 customers since Cisco began shipping the Unified Computing System a year ago, we continue to deliver innovation and one of the industry's broadest portfolios of compute options," said Soni Jiandani, vice president, Server Access and Virtualization Technology Group, Cisco. "The Unified Computing System is rapidly becoming the platform of choice for critical business applications: over 40 independent software vendors (ISVs) are now actively developing to the system, which currently supports tens of thousands of applications."

  • "As our customers architect next generation data centers, they are focused on building foundational technology infrastructures with Presidio that deliver immediate business efficiencies, and generate long term value," said Dave Hart, CTO, Presidio Networked Solutions.  "Cisco's continued innovation with its Data Center Business Advantage provides the architectural framework that helps Presidio create customer data center solutions that deliver the agility to react to changing business demands, rapid service creation and application delivery, and ultimately help our customers to gain a competitive edge and better compete in a global economy."

SUPPORTING RESOURCES

Technorati Tags:

Cisco, Data Center, Data Center Switches, Unified Computing System, Unified Fabric

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