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Cisco Collaborates with Industry to Create Virtualization Environment in Japan Using Unified Fabric


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Demonstration Environment in Cisco’s Tokyo Office Showcases Experience to Customers

TOKYO - Cisco Systems Godo Kaisha (President and CEO: Edzard Overbeek; Address: Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo; Cisco) today announced that, with other market-leading companies, it has created a virtualization environment using unified fabric and has implemented interoperability trials to advance Cisco’s Data Center 3.0 vision. Cisco also announced that it has set up a Cisco® VN-Link and a virtualization demonstration in the customer proof of concept (CPOC) facility at Cisco’s Tokyo head office to provide a environment for customers to experience virtualization.

The storage, server, adapter, virtual server and system integrator vendors who collaborated in the creation of the system include the following: EMC Japan Corp., ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corp., Intel Corp., Emulex Corp., Dell Inc., NetApp Japan, K.K., Net One Systems Co. Ltd., NEC Corp., Hewlett-Packard Japan Ltd., Fujitsu Ltd., VMware Inc., and Q-Logic Corp.

In the CPOC environment, customers receive explanations of the benefits brought about by next-generation networks from a business perspective, and can also experience the benefits of virtualization first-hand. This enables customers not only to reduce the amount of effort required for connection checks during the design and creation of virtualized systems, but also to flexibly expand their ideas of a successful business while actually using a next-generation system environment.

The unified fabric enables the integration of Internet Protocol (IP), storage and server clustering networks over the Internet, reducing the number of server interfaces and simplifying cable management. Additionally, it reduces costs and improves operational efficiency while protecting existing investments in data center resources. This unified fabric is made possible through open standards such as Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) and Cisco Data Center Ethernet.

Virtualized IT system environments are expected to become common within enterprises, requiring physical servers, virtual servers and storage to operate seamlessly together. The creation of a virtualization environment using a unified fabric and the implementation of interoperability tests has enabled companies across various industries to accumulate knowledge of FCoE environments.

1 Cisco VN-Link

Cisco VN-Link is a solution for providing smoother implementation of virtual servers in enterprises that have reached the deployment phase. The implementation of virtual servers requires harmonious design, setup and management of servers, storage and the network. Cisco VN-Link provides a solution to bridge these. Network policies can be set on a virtual server basis. Sound security policies can be applied to each virtual server even in movement of virtual machines between physical servers and live migration. It provides a common design, setup and operation environment for physical and virtual servers.

Cisco VN-Link is provided as a software solution on Cisco Nexus® 1000V running a VMware ESX environment. As a hardware solution, it is supported by the Nexus switch that supports VNTag currently being standardized. Furthermore, on the storage side, it is supported by the Cisco MDS9000 Series multilayer SAN switch.
About Cisco

Cisco, (NASDAQ: CSCO), is the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Information about Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, please go to http://newsroom.cisco.com. Cisco products in Japan are supplied by Cisco Systems International BV, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cisco Systems.

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Cisco, the Cisco logo, Cisco Systems and Cisco Nexus are registered trademarks or trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and certain other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company. This document is Cisco Public Information.

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Statements of support from storage vendors, server vendors, adapter vendors, virtual server vendors and system integrators that jointly created the unified fabric:

Intel Corporation

“Intel will support endeavors for bringing IT infrastructure within enterprises into the next generation. Intel’s server processors are optimal for creating flexible and powerful virtualization environments thanks to their high performance, low power consumption and the use of Intel® virtualization technology. Intel® Ethernet server adapters provide a unified fabric (FCoE) and are optimized for virtualization environments,” said Takashi Tokunaga, general manager, Digital Enterprise Group, Marketing Headquarters. “They are designed to reduce the load on the processor and improve system performance by distributing the load of network I/O management from the hypervisor to the interface card. Through these activities, we expect to further expand flexible creation of systems using Intel processors by testing systems optimized for virtualization and spreading the test results.”

Emulex Corporation

“This collaborative demonstration highlights the benefits of FCoE and its role in reducing data center complexity and lowering operational costs, while leveraging existing Fibre Channel investments for next-generation data center environments,” said Soogil Cho, vice president of international sales, APAC, Emulex Corp. “Emulex LightPulse FCoE Converged Network Adapters enable the unified fabric and advanced virtualization capabilities within Cisco’s demonstration.”

Q-Logic Corporation

“FCoE deployed between the server and the Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Switch will simplify infrastructure and reduce costs without disrupting existing storage and network architectures,” said Roger Klein, vice president and general manager, QLogic Host Solutions Group. “Unified data and storage networks built on this platform and fully compatible QLogic 8000 Series converged network adapters will result in 10 GbE performance, and reduced cabling, power and cooling.”

Hewlett-Packard Japan Ltd.

“HP Japan welcomes Cisco’s efforts to provide a virtualization environment using a unified fabric. Our more advanced customers have high expectations in FCoE as a technology for improving data center operability and efficiency. We are grateful that Cisco has brought together many vendors and taken the lead in interconnectivity trials. HP Japan has also adopted a strategy in which virtualization environments and next-generation data centers are the most important themes, and by working in close cooperation with Cisco, we will provide our customers with optimal data center solutions, including networking,” said Yoshitake Matsumoto, operating officer and chief director of HP’s Enterprise Storage Server Division.



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