Cisco has unveiled a new range of products for data centre operators, under the name Cisco Unified Computing System. The product range brings together computing, network, storage access and virtualization resources in a single system. The computing system includes 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 extended memory technology to support applications with large data sets and allow a large number of virtual machines per server.
The system also includes a 10 Gbps Ethernet network foundation integrating LANs, SANs and high-performance computing networks, while Cisco's network security, policy enforcement, and diagnostics features have been extended for dynamic virtualized environments. The Cisco Unified Computing System also 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, while IT staff can pre-assign storage access policies for system connectivity to storage resources. The entire system can be managed as a single entity through the Cisco UCS Manager. The UCS Manager provides a graphical user interface, command line interface and application programming interface to manage all system configuration and operations.
Cisco will offer a range of services with its partners such as Accenture for the Unified Computing System, including architecture design, planning, migration, operations and remote management. A related partner programme will see the company incorporate into the Unified Computing System products from other companies such as BMC Software, EMC, Microsoft, NetApp, Red Hat and VMware. The Cisco Unified Computing System and associated services will be generally available to customers starting in the second quarter.
