NetApp and Cisco are teaming up to provide customers with unified, dynamic data centre solutions that are based on Cisco’s Unified Computing System and NetApp Unified Storage Architecture. Cisco and NetApp are working together to certify the combined solution, and the companies will also collaborate on customer support and marketing activities.

The Cisco Unified Computing System unites compute, network, storage access, and virtualisation resources in a cohesive new data centre architecture. This allows customers to reduce the complexities often associated with data centre virtualisation, lower costs, and improve asset utilisation. Through Cisco Validated Design, NetApp will provide flexible and powerful storage solutions for the Cisco Unified Computing System that will be tested for interoperability in virtualised data centre environments. Customers benefit from the unified storage model across the entire NetApp product portfolio, application integration technologies such as the NetApp SnapManager product suite, and advanced storage efficiency features. As a result, customers can take advantage of NetApp’s unique advanced storage efficiency capabilities to drive down raw storage requirements, lower costs, improve utilisation in virtualised environments, and simplify administrative tasks. Additionally, NetApp’s leadership in Ethernet storage technology complements the Cisco Unified Computing System, which is based on a 10Gb per second Unified Fabric that supports Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE).