Cisco launches new virtualisation services

Mumbai: American global networking products and solutions firm Cisco has expanded the Cisco Data Centre 3.0 initiative by launching new products and professional services, the company announced yesterday. The new offerings will enhance virtual networks capabilieis in terms of speed, security, application delivery network, servers, virtualised computing, storage, responsiveness and resource management.

The products and services include Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) software 4.1, Application Control Engine (ACE) software 3.1 for the ACE application, VFrame Data Centre software 1.2 for end-to-end infrastructure provisioning and Data Centre 3.0 professional programmes and services.

''By virtualising the resources of a data centre, an enterprise can offer services across the globe from a single centralised data centre, thereby reducing operational cost and increasing asset effectiveness," said Sumit Mukhija, national sales manager, data centre, Cisco India and SAARC. "With these technologies, Cisco aims to help businesses achieve the agility and resiliency they need, to compete on a global scale.'' 

He noted that WAAS software 4.1 supports network embedded virtualisation and enables customers to deploy platforms such as Microsoft Windows Server 2008 at the local branch office, by reducing server hardware requirements. It also offers easy deployments with application specific acceleration features for Microsoft Exchange, web applications, live and on-demand video, centralized printing, and Unix/Linux file sharing.

Other salient features include performance, application fluency and end-to-end application delivery network support for real-time applications such as IP telephony, video and multimedia from the data centre to the branch office.
ACE software 3.1 enhances the ACE 4710 application switch capacity up to 4Gbps with up to 2Gbps of compression capability. This doubles the device's virtualised performance in a compact form factor. The switch uses virtual devices that save time, cost, power, space; without hardware devices.

WAAS 4.1 and ACE 3.1 software function over WAN platform with virtual load balancing, security and bandwidth. VFrame 1.2 platform offers network based service orchestration provisioning. Its can optimise virtual computing, storage and network resources with a near real-time deployment agility based on the provisioning intelligence within the platform.

Along with the new offerings, Cisco also announced programs for customer support that include the data center efficiency assurance program - an extension to the Data Centre Assurance Program (DCAP) 4.0 and DCAP for applications.

Cisco WAAS software release 4.1 is scheduled to be available for download in Q3, CY08. WAAS Live Video Streaming and WAAS Virtualisation are separately licensed features with pricing starting at $2500 per device.