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The coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak is forcing corporations and institutions to enable workers and members to be able to work remotely. Cisco recognizes the significant pressure this situation may be putting on our customers’ IT resources and employees.

To help our customers meet this challenge, we are providing a set of data center offerings that will help customers manage and rapidly expand their virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) including a new, pre-configured HyperFlex bundle with prioritized shipping, and free Intersight management for 180 days. In addition to Webex and Security offers, these new data center offerings will help our customers meet the new challenges of ramping and supporting remote workers and delivering the user experience those remote workers need.

Deploy quickly and manage from anywhere

For many companies, supporting the increasing demand for remote workers while minimizing disruption will require the addition or rapid expansion of existing compute infrastructure. To help, we are releasing special HyperFlex (HX) pre-configured VDI bundles with prioritized* 2 week lead times.

This Cisco architecture for a quick start 500-seat VDI configuration is now available and includes:

  • Three Cisco HyperFlex HXAF220-M5SX All-Flash nodes
  • One Cisco HyperFlex HX-C220-M5SX Compute-only node
  • A pair of Cisco’s fabric interconnects

Additionally, available now is a Cisco architecture for a quick start 1000-seat VDI configuration and it includes:

  • Six Cisco HyperFlex HXAF240-M5SX All-Flash nodes
  • Two Cisco HyperFlex HX-C240-M5SX Compute-only nodes
  • A pair of Cisco’s fabric interconnects

Preconfigured expansion nodes are also available for existing HX environments. These offers will be available globally from now until July 31, 2020.

Our VDI ecosystem partners, Citrix, VMware, and NVIDIA have extended trial license offers that can be used together with the HyperFlex Quick Ship infrastructure bundles. For more information, reach out to your Cisco Account Manager or channel partner.

Additionally, to help IT teams monitor and manage their infrastructure anywhere, anytime, we are augmenting the VDI bundle with a 180-day free trial of our Cisco Intersight Essentials edition. Cisco Intersight is a cloud-based SaaS tool that lets you manage all your HyperFlex and UCS devices from anywhere through a single pane of glass. Cisco Intersight enables real time monitoring, proactive intelligence, and connected support (Connected TAC). The Essentials edition provides you even more exclusive features and access to the Intersight mobile app on iOS and Android. Intersight users can stay up to date on the latest product updates by joining our virtual Intersight User Group on LinkedIn.

Advocating for those on the front lines

We realize our public sector and healthcare customers are on the front lines of the fight to control COVID-19 and communicate the latest information to the public. In order to help enable their data center teams to rapidly expand their VDI environments, we will prioritize shipments of HyperFlex nodes and UCS servers for these customers.

We’re in this together

Supporting our customers through challenging times is our highest priority. As we navigate this together, rest assured that Cisco will do what it can to help minimize disruption for you and to enable your employees to stay connected.

To learn how Cisco can help you with business continuity planning during the COVID-19 pandemic, please visit: http://cisco.com/go/covid19.

To hear more from Cisco, read Chuck Robbins Letter to Customers and Partners.

*Prioritized 2 week lead times is not a guarantee but a supply prioritization that once an order is received the bundle orders will be prioritized to be received by the customer within 2 weeks while supplies last.



Authors

Kaustubh Das

SVP and General Manager

Cloud & Compute