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Cisco and VMware Enhance Virtualization with Powerful, Scalable Unified Computing System

Cisco and VMware Enhance Virtualization with Powerful, Scalable Unified Computing System

OEM Agreement Brings Unified Computing to Businesses, Enabling Reduced Total Cost of Ownership, Increased Business Agility and Simplification of System Management

SAN JOSE, CA, and PALO ALTO, CA March 16, 2009 – Cisco® and VMware today announced a comprehensive, strategic original equipment manufacturer (OEM) agreement which will incorporate product engineering and integrated sales and support strategies for datacenter virtualization and unified computing. The resulting combination of the Cisco Unified Computing System with VMware’s virtualization platform will provide customers with access to a unique and powerful virtualized and physical computing system over an intelligent, unified network fabric.

Highlights / Key Facts:
Benefits of agreement:

  • The Cisco Unified Computing System is a next-generation datacenter platform that unites compute, network, storage access and virtualization into a cohesive system and, coupled with VMware’s virtualization platform, will provide an efficient, reliable, scalable and flexible environment for delivery of IT-as-a-service..
  • The Unified Computing System with VMware virtualization will enable joint customers to expand the deployment of virtualization to a broader range of mission-critical applications while helping to significantly reduce their total cost of ownership (TCO), increase business agility, simplify system management and improve energy efficiency.
  • Further, the Cisco and VMware relationship will provide a foundation for next-generation cloud-based services, giving customers the choice of deploying and managing applications on internal or external clouds, or deploying them into federated “private” clouds for even greater scalability.

Technology features

  • Each Cisco Unified Computing System will support thousands of virtual machines to establish a new milestone for computing density.
  • Specific areas of development and technical integration for the Unified Computing System architecture include:
    • Support for the unified fabric with certification of consolidated I/O via 10Gb lossless Ethernet and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE);
    • Built-in VN-Link, a new technology being jointly proposed to the IEEE, a professional association for the advancement of technology, as one of the industry standards-based approaches for providing granular network visibility at the virtual machine level;
    • Integration with the VMware vCenter™ suite of management products for managing virtual network policies and resources;
    • Virtualization consulting services from Cisco to help customers create and deploy server, network and storage virtualization solutions across their datacenters that reduce costs by provisioning new applications quickly and safely, while maintaining high levels of application performance.

Integrated Sales and Support

  • Cisco will also offer virtualization consulting services to help customers accelerate the deployment of Unified Computing Systems across their datacenters, helping to reduce costs by provisioning new applications quickly and with a high level of security, while maintaining high levels of application performance.
  • Cisco continues to further extend its relationship with VMware by becoming a VMware Authorized Consultant (VAC) partner, which assists in the development and incorporation of virtualization services as part of an overall datacenter offering. By expanding VMware service capabilities through the program, Cisco is better positioned to bring its customers complete datacenter solutions.
  • The Cisco and VMware Virtualization Assessment Service and the Cisco and VMware Planning and Design Service help identify and close gaps in customers’ server, storage and network infrastructures to provide a virtualized, consolidated end-to-end architecture.
  • Cisco and VMware intend to educate alliance partners and customers on the use of virtualization technology, and to scale this knowledge through industry-leading education and certification programs.
  • Cisco and VMware will collaborate on joint sales, joint channel programs, and marketing activities that will help customers accelerate their datacenter virtualization projects to drive the adoption of datacenter virtualization over shorter periods of time.

Supporting Quotes:

"VMware has been working with Cisco for more than three years to bring together VMware's virtual datacenter operating system with the intelligent network fabric," said Tod Nielsen, chief operating officer, VMware. "The Cisco Unified Computing System combined with our virtualization technology, including the VMware vSphere product family currently under development, will allow us to extend those developments in a scalable, high-performance manner with a cloud-based architectural approach."

“Cisco and VMware have a strong history of helping our mutual customers address their datacenter and virtualization needs,” said Carl Eschenbach, executive vice president of worldwide field operations, VMware. “As a VAC partner, Cisco can help our customers further reduce costs, improve flexibility and increase availability of their data centers.”

“The Cisco Unified Computing System is designed to greatly simplify the ability for customers to transition to fully virtualized datacenters,” said Prem Jain, senior vice president, Server Access and Virtualization Business Unit, Cisco. “We are working closely with VMware to increase visibility of virtualized infrastructures that can be managed and secured as easily as physical machines, but at a more dynamic scale across the datacenter. We believe this kind of manageability will further accelerate the market adoption of virtualization and provide for more flexible and responsive datacenter environments.”

Additional Resources:

About VMware
VMware (NYSE: VMW) is the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter.  Customers of all sizes rely on VMware to reduce capital and operating expenses, ensure business continuity, strengthen security and go green.  With 2008 revenues of $1.9 billion, more than 130,000 customers and more than 22,000 partners, VMware is one of the fastest growing public software companies. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, VMware is majority owned by EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC).  For more information, visit www.vmware.com.

About Cisco Systems
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.

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

Forward-Looking Statements
Statements made in this press release which are not statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements and are subject to the safe harbor provisions created by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements relate, but are not limited, to ongoing development and delivery of innovative new products and customer adoption and deployment of virtualization technologies. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of certain risk factors, including but not limited to: (i) current uncertainty in global economic conditions that pose a risk to the overall economy as consumers and businesses may defer purchases in response to tighter credit and negative financial news, which could negatively affect product demand; (ii) end users’ ability to integrate and to transition to new products and computing platforms; and (iii) changes to product development timelines.  These forward looking statements are based on current expectations and are subject to uncertainties and changes in condition, significance, value and effect as well as other risks detailed in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2008, which could cause actual results to vary from expectations. VMware disclaims any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release.