Cisco Unleashes the Power of Virtualization With Industry's First Unified Computing System
Innovative Architecture Integrates Compute, Networking and Virtualization in a Single Platform; New Services and Partnerships Focused on Next Generation Data Centers
SAN JOSE, CA--(Marketwire - March 16, 2009) - Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) today unveiled an
evolutionary new data center architecture, innovative services and an open
ecosystem of
best-in-class partners to help customers develop
next generation data centers that unleash the full power of virtualization.
With today's announcement, Cisco is delivering on the promise of
virtualization through Unified Computing -- an architecture that bridges
the silos in the data center into one unified architecture using industry
standard technologies. Key to Cisco's approach is the Cisco Unified Computing
System which unites compute, network, storage access, and virtualization resources in a single energy efficient system that
can reduce IT infrastructure costs and complexity, help extend capital
assets and improve business agility well into the future.
Today's announcements extend Cisco's data
center portfolio and are a critical step in the company's Data Center 3.0 strategy. To help customers accelerate the
transition to the Unified Computing architecture, Cisco is paving the way
with a comprehensive suite of new Unified Computing
services. In addition, Cisco today announced collaboration
with industry leaders on the Unified Computing System and architecture.
The Cisco Unified Computing System: Based on industry
standards, the Unified Computing System is a new computing model that uses
integrated management and combines a "wire once" unified fabric with an industry standard
computing platform to optimize virtualization, reduce data center total
overall cost, and provide dynamic resource provisioning for increased
business agility.
Reduces total cost of ownership: up to 20 percent reduction in capital
expenditures (CAPEX) and up to 30% reduction in operational expenditures
(OPEX).
Improves IT productivity and improves business agility: provision
applications in minutes instead of days. Shifts the focus from IT
maintenance to IT innovation.
Increases scalability without added complexity: managed as a single
system, whether it has one or 320 servers with thousands of virtual
machines.
Improves Energy Efficiency: significantly reduces power and cooling
costs.
Provides interoperability and investment protection through industry
standards-based infrastructure.
Innovative Design for Next Generation Data Centers
Taking a clean slate architectural approach to data center infrastructure,
Cisco today introduced the Unified Computing System which unites compute,
network, storage access, and virtualization into a scalable, modular
architecture that is managed as a single system. The Unified Computing
System is the first offering in a new family of products which complements
the Cisco data center portfolio. Key Unified Computing System elements
include:
Compute - Cisco designed an entirely new class of computing
system which incorporates the new Cisco UCS B-Series blades based on the
future Intel® Nehalem processor families (the next generation Intel®
Xeon® processor). The Cisco blades offer patented extended memory
technology to support applications with large data sets and allow
significantly more Virtual Machines per server.
Network - The Cisco Unified Computing System provides support
for a unified fabric over a low-latency, lossless, 10 Gigabit-per-second
Ethernet foundation. This network foundation consolidates what today are
three separate networks: local area networks (LANs), storage area networks
(SANs) and high performance computing networks. This lowers costs by
reducing the number of network adapters, switches, and cables and by
decreasing power and cooling requirements.
Virtualization - The Cisco Unified Computing System unleashes
the full potential of virtualization, by enhancing the scalability,
performance and operational control of virtual environments. Cisco
security, policy enforcement, and diagnostics features are now extended
into dynamic virtualized environments to better support changing business
and IT requirements.
Storage Access - The Cisco Unified Computing System provides
consolidated access to both storage area networks (SANs) and to network
attached storage (NAS). Support for a unified fabric means that the
Unified Computing System can access storage over Ethernet, Fibre Channel,
Fibre Channel over Ethernet or iSCSI, providing customers with choices and
investment protection. In addition, IT staff can pre-assign storage access
policies for system connectivity to storage resources, simplifying storage
connectivity and management, and helping to increase IT productivity.
Management - Management is uniquely integrated into all the
components of the system, enabling the entire solution to be managed as a
single entity through the Cisco UCS Manager. The Cisco UCS Manager provides
an intuitive graphical user interface (GUI), a command line interface
(CLI), and a robust application programming interface (API) to manage all
system configuration and operations. Cisco UCS Manager helps to increase
IT staff productivity, enabling IT managers of storage, networking, compute
and applications to collaborate on defining service profiles for
applications. Service profiles help to automate provisioning and increase
business agility, allowing data center managers to provision applications
in minutes instead of days.
Energy Efficiency - IT managers can achieve more energy
efficient data centers with the Cisco Unified Computing System -- it uses
one-half the components, and requires less cabling and power/cooling than
legacy server installations.
Cisco Unified Computing Services
Building on more than a decade of experience in the data center, Cisco
today launched a suite of new Unified Computing
Services to help customers capture the full technical and business
benefits of the Cisco Unified Computing architecture.
Strengthening the data center portfolio already offered by Cisco and
our partners, the new services range from architecture design, planning,
and migration, to operations, and remote management. These services touch
all aspects of data center resources -- people, processes,
and technologies.
Cisco's unique collaborative services model combines Cisco Services'
deep intellectual property with best-in-class services partnerships to
deliver integrated solutions to our customers.
Open Partner Ecosystem - Cisco is collaborating with an open
ecosystem of industry leaders to help stimulate technology innovation,
augment service delivery, and accelerate market adoption of Unified
Computing. More details on these partners available here.
The Cisco Unified Computing System and associated services will be
generally available to customers starting in the second quarter of 2009.
Supporting Quotes:
"The Virtual Machine has become the new atomic building block of the
data center, creating new challenges and opportunities with the potential
to transform the computing environment and deliver significant benefits,"
said Mario Mazzola, senior vice president, Server Access and Virtualization
Business Unit, Cisco. "Taking advantage of this architectural shift in the
data center, we developed a unique new computing model that transforms the
data center into a dynamic IT environment with the power to increase
productivity, improve business agility and drive the benefits of
virtualization to an entirely new level."
"Savvis is excited to be one of the first service providers to test the
Cisco Unified Computing System and we see an opportunity for increased
value to customers directly attributable to this new architectural model,"
said Bryan Doerr, Chief Technology Officer at Savvis. "For us to operate
virtualized and cloud environments reliably, affordably and at large scale
is paramount to offering compelling value to our customers worldwide."
"In today's economy, IT organizations are mandated to increase
productivity and cut costs while maintaining the IT excellence that
provides their companies with a competitive edge," said John Enck, managing
vice president, Infrastructure and Operations at Gartner. "CIOs will
invest in innovative technology if it increases productivity, protects
their existing IT investments, and demonstrates real benefits that will
extend the life of the data center."
"The Cisco Unified Computing System offers a clean-sheet approach to
solve data center challenges by offering a single holistic solution with
integrated management and the critical support necessary for scaling
virtualization," said Vernon Turner, senior vice president of Enterprise
Infrastructure, Consumer and Telecom Research at IDC. "By increasing the
performance and scale of virtualized environments while at the same time
improving the ability to control and manage virtual workloads, this
solution has the potential to deliver the full benefits of virtualization
across the data center to increase productivity and agility and reduce IT
costs."
Supporting Resources:
View John Chambers
video on the new Cisco Unified Computing System
Register to attend live webcast:Cisco Unified Computing System
Monday, March 16, 2009 at 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. PT
Technorati Tags: Cisco, data center, virtualization, unified
fabric, unified computing, blade server, server, data center network,
switching
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