Data Center Solutions
The next generation data center, also known as Data Center 3.0 - is intended to enable customers to better utilize their data center resources, build less expensive storage-area networks, and enhance data security. While Cisco’s Data Center 1.0 and 2.0 strategies focus on data center consolidation, 3.0 targets virtualization and automation.
Data Center Virtualization
At the core of Data Center 3.0 is data center virtualization. Through the implementation of server virtualization, your company will experience increased resilience, agility, responsiveness, and utilization, and a reduction in costs pertaining to hardware, power, and cooling demands. Cisco, in partnership with VMware - offers server virtualization networking through the VN-Link technology. VN-Link improves the mobility of virtual machines (VMs) by providing integration between the hypervisor, the VM, the network and storage. Through a collaborative policy-based configuration model from VMware's Virtual Center, Cisco's VN-Link supports scalable, mobile, and highly secure VM deployments through a flexible, operationally consistent model of data-center. In addition, the VN-Link technology on the Nexus 1000V integrates with VMware's vNetwork Distributed Switch framework to provide efficiency in virtual environments and accessibility to real-time data for troubleshooting purposes and network consistency.
Data Center Consolidation
Another key goal of Data Center 3.0 is to bond Ethernet, Fiber Channel, and InfiniBand into a single fabric for connectivity and virtualization network elements. Unified fabric consolidates different types of traffic onto a single, all-purpose, high-performance, highly available network. By consolidating your traffic, you remove the complex aspects and reduce costs related to interfaces, cabling, rack space, upstream switches, and power and cooling. management.
Network Storage
Data center infrastructures must evolve quickly to keep up with the growing demands of new applications and ever-changing business challenges. Storage costs are growing faster than server costs, so the need for more cost-effective storage has become a primary issue when searching for the perfect data center solution for companies in need of constant availability. Cisco has taken such issues into consideration by creating the MDS 9000 family of multilayer directors and fabric switches. The Storage Networking Solution protects your company's investment, supports virtualization, protects your critical data, consolidates your resources, and keeps your users constantly connected.
Hitachi Data Systems' Fiber Channel offers a reliable, high-bandwidth storage solution for larger businesses. Fiber Channel works with multiple SAN topologies to provide storage consolidation, improved network performance, and/or the integration of SAN and NAS within your network.
Through EqualLogic, we can offer a scalable iSCSi solution for growing companies who have a constant need for more storage. By choosing to consolidate storage onto an EqualLogic PS Series SAN, you will no longer be constrained to storage solutions that are directly attached to servers. Instead, you will experience a reduced administrative overhead, simplified IT operations, expanded storage capacity, and an increase in availability.
By bringing data center virtualization, data center consolidation, and network storage together, your company will stay one step ahead of the pack and reap benefits such as:
- Optimization of the delivery of critical business services
- Extending the lifecycle of existing data center assets
- Improvement in business resilience
