July 26, 2007

Data Center 3.0?

Posted by:
Omar Sultan, CCIE
Solution Manager – Data Center Switching
CMO – Data Center Solutions

You may be wondering if there is anything to this “Data Center 3.0” thing beyond some clever marketing folks earning their paychecks. Well, clever marketing folks aside, the name was very explicitly chosen, so lets deconstruct it a bit.

First of all, this is not LAN 3.0 or SAN 3.0, but Data Center 3.0. The point is that, looking ahead, you can expect a more holistic approach to Cisco data center solutions. The best example of this is the Data Center Assurance Program—its not just product or feature testing, but full-fledged system integration testing. VFrame Data Center is an other example of a solution designed with a pan-data center perspective

Second, if you look at where the industry is heading and more importantly, how our customers looking to transform their businesses, we feel we are on the cusp of another inflection point. To successfully ride this transition is going to take fresh thinking and new solutions. Granted, we need to build upon what is currently successful, but we also need to step outside the box in terms of products and solutions, hence, we have 3.0.

Data Center 3.0 encompasses this mix of both the evolutionary and the revolutionary. For example, we have taken our existing storage networking solutions and added new form factors for design flexibility. We have also added new capabilities such as Storage Media Encryption and the Cisco N-Port Virtualizer because they address pressing customer concerns such as regulatory compliance and simplification of server infrastructure.

On the other hand, VFrame Data Center inaugurates a whole new category of tools. Actually, if you take VFrame Data Center, Cisco Smart Call Home and the Cisco Data Center Assurance Program together, you can see on of the goals of Data Center 3.0 is to not just allow you to do more or do better, but to do easier—simplify operations.

Finally, Data Center 3.0 is about keeping pace with the increasing complexity and scope of customer’s application environments. At Networkers, for example, we introduced a trusted WAN optimization solution to offer secure WAN acceleration and more precise application performance management. Along the same lines, the Cisco ACE XML Gateway allows an increased ability to monitor and manage XML traffic. These solutions are elements of a broader Data Center 3.0 strategy to increase the application fluency of the network, which, we believe, will support further customer innovation.

I think that final point is the real value of Data Center 3.0—it’s all about giving our customers the tools to innovate. If you watch the video clip of Jayshree Ullal on this blog, her final comment is worth remembering: the things we launched at Networkers this week are simply the beginning—they establish a vision and a vector and give you a hint of some of the cool things you can look forward to in the coming months.

Posted by Cisco PR at 03:46 PM Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

July 25, 2007

Cisco Unveils Plans to Transform the Data Center

Duration: 1 min. 48 sec.

Jayshree Ullal, Senior Vice President, Data Center, Switching and Security Technology Group, Cisco, discusses the launch of Data Center 3.0 from Networkers at Cisco Live!

More information regarding Cisco and its Data Center 3.0 vision can be found on the Data Center Solutions website.

Posted by Cisco PR at 03:15 PM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

July 17, 2007

How we can all drive Data Center Power Efficiencies...

Good day all. I was just in a series of customer and analyst meetings where I was asked a couple questions about how can a customer drive more efficient use of their data centers. One person adroitly asked, "What can they do today?"

I thought this was a good topic to see what everyone else thinks. I wrote a few ideas, they are certainly up for debate and I don't pretend they are the be-all end-all answer. But if anyone has a different opinion, add your ideas, see what others come up with and comment on those too. What can we all do better? Here's a few thoughts I have...

1) Run your Data Center at 220V-240V, not at 110V. Credit for this has to go to Andy Bechtolsheim at Sun Microsystems who mentioned it to TOm Edsall and I a few months ago. This could drive a pretty quick 10%+ efficiency gain and not require all new servers, storage, or networking equipment. Big win.

2) Look for silos of equipment. Do you have 20 Load Balancers? Why? Could One or two do the job from a throughput perspective? If so then look at virtualizing these silos. This is especially easy in security and Application Networking where the silo model seems to be most prevalent.

3) Direct Attached Storage rotates as fast as a disk drive in your SAN - but you generally use a lot less of it. In some cases it can be more effective to go with diskless servers and SAN-boot them.

4) Older power supplies. Sometimes on older equipment that may be 5 or 7 years old or sometimes older the power supplies were designed with state-of-the-art efficiencies then of 80% efficient conversion. Some may have decreased in effiiciency as they aged or accumulated efficiency reducing dust/dirt or other airflow blockage causing them to run warmer. Maybe replacing them with a newer 90% efficient P/W makes sense.

What other ideas do you have?

Posted by Douglas Gourlay at 08:15 PM Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)