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Cisco Unified Computing System

Cisco, Microsoft Team Up For Data Center Virtualization Solutions

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Cisco has announced that is partnering with Microsoft to deliver data center virtualization solutions designed to provide improved scalability and operational control of Microsoft Windows Server “8” virtual environments.

The Cisco Nexus 1000V distributed virtual switch and the Cisco Unified Computing System with Virtual Machine Fabric Extender (VM-FEX) capabilities will work with the Windows Server Hyper-V hypervisor to provide customers with Cisco networking features that are constant across both virtual and physical networks while supporting customers’ existing IT management processes.

The Cisco Nexus 1000V distributed virtual switch adds the dynamic provisioning and management capabilities of Cisco NX-OS Software to Windows Server Hyper-V to simplify the operations of virtual networking infrastructures as extensions of physical networks.

It also provides full VM-level visibility, security controls in a virtualized environment that are consistent with their Cisco physical network.

By working with Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) management tools, the Cisco Nexus 1000V will help network, virtualization and server administrators gain efficiency in collaboratively managing multi-tenant and mobile virtual environments. It also helps them to obtain real-time data for troubleshooting of virtual environments.

The Cisco Nexus 1000V and VM-FEX solutions for Hyper-V will be available when Windows 8 Server is released to the market.

Cisco Touts 4,000 Customers For Its Unified Computing System, And Other Milestones

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Cisco this morning announced a series of customer and technology milestones across the Unified Fabric, Unified Computing System and Unified Network Services technology portfolios which form the foundation of its Data Center Business Advantage architectural framework.

Cisco announced that it has shipped its one millionth Nexus 10Gb Ethernet port, bringing the total number of Nexus ports in customer production environments to more than 7,000,000.

The company also surpassed 10,000 NX-OS customers and neared 4,000 Unified Computing Systems customers at the end of its fiscal second quarter.

The Nexus and UCS families of products are vital assets in Cisco’s cloud computing portfolio. They provide the building blocks for virtualized data center and private cloud environments, and are already deployed by enterprises for private cloud applications such as desktop virtualization, hosted voice, video, collaboration and security.

UCS and Nexus have been implemented for cloud services at service providers such as AlphaWest, Cincinnati Bell, Navisite, Orange Business Services, PINS, Rackspace, Radiant, Savvis and Terremark.

Cisco announced today that it has reached nearly 4,000 customers for its Unified Computing System, eighteen months since the first generation of the platform shipped. In excess of 1,000 of these customers are said to be repeat purchasers of UCS.

As of Cisco’s fiscal year second quarter 2011, Cisco’s Unified Computing System revenue grew more than 700% year-over-year, bringing the UCS annualized revenue run rate to $650M.