Friday, June 15, 2012

Cisco and Fusion-IO Team Up for Flash on UCS Blade Server Systems

Cisco Systems is planning on teaming up with Fusion-IO's flash storage modules later this year which will make the company the latest server manufacturer to offer the technology already available in servers from IBM, Dell and HP. Fusion-IO announced last Monday that this is the first Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) partnership the company has had with Cisco.

In addition to that, Fusion-IO will supply its ioMemory modules and software for use in Cisco's B-Series Unified Computing System (UCS) blade servers. Fusion-IO also provided demonstrations at the Cisco Live user conference last week in San Diego.

Fusion-IO is known for making flash storage subsystems that are integrated into servers via a PCle slot as opposed to being located on external storage systems. This type of storage is generally more directly accessible than conventional solid-state disks (SSD) and is also designed to accelerate application performance. Fusion-IO has also developed flash subsystems with HP for use in its BladeSystem c-Class servers and also with IBM for its xSeries line. Dell and SuperMicro servers also benefit from Fusion-IO subsystems as well.

The UCS platform used by Cisco was introduced back in 2009 and has moved up to being the third most incorporated blade server in the world, boasting more than 11,000 customers. Even though there are also rack mount UCS servers, blade servers are still the most utilized of the product line. Cisco uses blade servers in a platform that includes virtualization, network connections, access to storage and management software. Cisco also has storage partnerships with EMS as well as VMware through its VCE alliance and NetApp.

The first Fusion-IO components for UCS will be based on Fusion-IO's ioMemory2 technology, an upgrade that was announced at the beginning of this year and will eventually ship from all of the company's OEM partners. Pricing and available capacities have yet to be unveiled, though you can expect that information to come just before commercial release of the product.

Source: Computer World - Fusion-IO on-server flash coming to Cisco's UCS blade systems

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