Cisco Blog > Data Center and Cloud
March 21, 2013 at 10:35 am PST
March Madness is here and in full effect. If you’re reading this post you probably aren’t paying close enough attention to the results pouring in from the round of 64. Today and tomorrow will make or break your bracket! Take appropriate action. As soon as I hit “publish” on this post I promise you that I will.
We have some fun things going on here during the tournament. If you’re watching the games you may see some UCS ads (yes, server ads from Cisco on TV…believe it!) We teamed up with CDW and Charles Barkley to celebrate the soothing hum of the data center in this spot, and there are a couple more that touch on Cisco Data Center more broadly.
These ads come on the heels of a big push we’re making at Cisco to spread the good word about Unified Computing. We have print and digital ads running across the big tech pubs that talk about the very real application performance and IT operations benefits the UCS brings.
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Tags: Cisco Data Center Fabric, data center, Servers, UCS, unified computing, unified computing system
February 4, 2013 at 5:42 am PST
Cisco Unified Computing System Service Profiles and Templates contain over 127 different server identification and configuration settings. These identity settings are abstracted from the physical server and stored in the UCS Domain where they can be leveraged automating and speeding deployment while reducing errors. Today, this Cisco innovation is still unique in the industry. The reality is that no other server vendor can offer the level of hardware abstraction that Cisco provides with UCS Manager using Service Profiles and Templates.
Unlike Cisco, other vendors must rely on many different tools and methods that are cobbled together to manage their servers. For some, it can take up to six different tools to configure a subset of what Cisco can do with one and most of these tools are at an additional cost.
Are you concerned about systems management and how it impacts your total cost of ownership (TCO)? Here are some fair questions to ask your current vendor:
- Can your software templates manage both rack and blade servers using a single tool and interface?
- Are your templates and profiles limited to specific models and only certain generation of servers, requiring different templates or tools for the same settings for servers from different generations of the same server model?
- Is server firmware truly integrated into a single tool and supported by policies and profiles?
- Do the tools use only proprietary orchestration and automation software to manage the infrastructure or does it support an open interface like XML?
- What is the licensing model – how much is the additional cost per server or per blade chassis to fully manage server profiles, updates to firmware, BIOS, and integration with other tools?
If you have more than one domain, UCS Central will manage them extending all the benefits of UCS Manger globally. You can leverage your templates and profiles across all servers regardless of location.
If you’d like to have a more in-depth discussion on this topic, contact your Cisco account team or Partner.
Want to learn more? Take Cisco UCS Manager for a test drive.
Convinced? Buy now and save with Cisco UCS SmartPlays.
Tags: blades, data center, Servers, UCS, unified computing, unified computing system
November 22, 2012 at 5:33 am PST
Professional services, Consultancy Services, Advanced Services -- call them what you will. I can hear you say: “On No! Complexity”. “Now I need to work a Statement of Work”. “I need help to get my project on time, can’t this get easier?” “I need to get my legal contracts team involved.” “Why can’t you just tell me a price?”
Common reactions from some of you who will engage any (and I mean any, not just Cisco!) professional services organization (for example, Cisco Services or one of our many partners) to help bring additional experience, expertise and resources to your projects. The good news is, where appropriate to your requirements, this complexity has been substantially reduced, with Fixed Price services from Cisco, available now for many of our most popular products and solutions.
I will confess: this is not new – in fact we (quietly) first released such Fixed Price services back in 2009, to support the Cisco Unified Computing System deployments! – and if we’re honest, we’ve not talked much about them and how successful they’ve become, with many, many customers taking advantage of these quick-to-engage expert services.
These services have really made it easier for customers and partners to do business with Cisco, delivering a number of significant advantages to our customers and partners, as illustrated below.
Cisco Fixed Price Services - Characteristics
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Tags: Borderless Networks, cisco_services, data center, security, TelePresence, unified computing system, WebEX
If you haven’t already found your way into Cisco’s new online UCS Build and Price portal, there are some very interesting “Smart Plays” awaiting you. You can check our new UCS promotions page regularly to find the latest UCS Server Smart Plays such as the UCS B200 M3 Value Smart Play, currently offered (limited time) at only $7600. This includes two Intel® Xeon® processor E5-2650′s with 16 cores, 64 GB of memory, one VIC 1240 and one VIC 1280 virtual interface card offering a combined 80Gb of IO throughput in a half-width blade server. This blade server is a real powerhouse in a compact package and now it’s offered at an exceptional price through Cisco Build and Price.
See the new line-up of Cisco UCS blade servers and rack servers with Intel Xeon processors that just claimed another eight new world-record industry benchmarks.
Cisco UCS Performance Brief
Cisco UCS B200 M3 Blade Server
These same servers are now available at competitive prices as Smart Plays on Cisco’s new Build and Price portal. Download specifications, performance reports and compare blade server prices on these popular servers while they last.
In his most recent Blog on October 8th, Girish Kulkarni highlights several new World Record Benchmarks for Oracle E-Business Suite on the UCS B200 M3 Blade Server. You can see all UCS Rack Server and Blade Server World-Record Benchmarks on our Performance Benchmarks page on Cisco.com.
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Tags: blade server, cloud, Cloud Computing, data center, server, server pricing, UCS, unified computing system
October 25, 2012 at 7:56 am PST
In my first blog post, I highlighted some of the benefits being seen by customers using Cisco Unified Computing System™ (UCS) from Case Studies. In posts two, three, and four, I discussed reduction in cabling, provisioning times, and power & cooling in more detail. Today’s post will highlight three customers and their reduction in operating costs where, to quote Ben Franklin, “A penny saved is a penny earned.”
EDIF Holding SPA– “We have reduced our operating costs by 75 percent while renewing the technology in our IT infrastructure, and we can now offer better continuity of service and a faster response to our customers.” Samuele Cerquetti, CIO
Seven Corners Inc.– “The system paid for itself in less than a year by recouping the more than $1 million the company had been losing annually due to network outages. The company also achieved a $475,000 reduction in operating costs within the first six months of buildout and saved $84,000 instantly by not having to renew software licenses on a number of virtualized servers.”
Avago Technologies – “Ordinarily, expanding from two to three data centers would be expected to increase operational costs by 50 percent. ‘Our operational costs will actually decrease by 40 percent when we expand from two to three data centers.’” Shreyas Shah, Senior Director, Global Information Technology
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Tags: blades, data center, Servers, UCS, unified computing, unified computing system
