SAN JOSE, USA: Cisco Systems unveiled an evolutionary new data center architecture, innovative services and an open ecosystem of best in class partners to help customers develop next-generation data centers that unleash the full power of virtualization.

Cisco is delivering on the promise of virtualization through Unified Computing, an architecture that bridges the silos in the data center into one unified architecture using industry standard technologies. Key to Cisco's approach is the Cisco Unified Computing System which unites compute, network, storage access, and virtualization resources in a single energy efficient system that can reduce IT infrastructure costs and complexity, help extend capital assets and improve business agility well into the future.

The announcements extend Cisco's data center portfolio and are a critical step in the company's Data Center 3.0 strategy. To help customers accelerate the transition to the Unified Computing architecture, Cisco is paving the way with a comprehensive suite of new Unified Computing services. In addition, Cisco today announced collaboration with industry leaders on the Unified Computing System and architecture.

The Cisco Unified Computing System: Based on industry standards, the Unified Computing System is a new computing model that uses integrated management and combines a "wire once" unified fabric with an industry standard computing platform to optimize virtualization, reduce data center total overall cost, and provide dynamic resource provisioning for increased business agility.

* Reduces total cost of ownership: up to 20 percent reduction in capital expenditures (CAPEX) and up to 30% reduction in operational expenditures (OPEX).
* Improves IT productivity and improves business agility: provision applications in minutes instead of days. Shifts the focus from IT maintenance to IT innovation.
* Increases scalability without added complexity: managed as a single system, whether it has one or 320 servers with thousands of virtual machines.
* Improves Energy Efficiency: significantly reduces power and cooling costs.
* Provides interoperability and investment protection through industry standards-based infrastructure.
* Innovative Design for Next Generation Data Centers.

Taking a clean slate architectural approach to data center infrastructure, Cisco introduced the Unified Computing System, which unites compute, network, storage access, and virtualization into a scalable, modular architecture that is managed as a single system. The Unified Computing System is the first offering in a new family of products which complements the Cisco data center portfolio. Key Unified Computing System elements include:

Compute: Cisco designed an entirely new class of computing system which incorporates the new Cisco UCS B-Series blades based on the future Intel® Nehalem processor families (the next generation Intel® Xeon® processor). The Cisco blades offer patented extended memory technology to support applications with large data sets and allow significantly more Virtual Machines per server.

Network: The Cisco Unified Computing System provides support for a unified fabric over a low-latency, lossless, 10 Gigabit-per-second Ethernet foundation. This network foundation consolidates what today are three separate networks: local area networks (LANs), storage area networks (SANs) and high performance computing networks. This lowers costs by reducing the number of network adapters, switches, and cables and by decreasing power and cooling requirements.