UCS C Series Servers for Engineers

The IT industry is in the midst of a transformation, but there is no cohesion. T

he network platform is evolving in terms of speed and capability. The compute pl
atform, once differentiated by processors and form factor, is now differentiated
by the capacity for virtualization and optimization.
Virtualization is the most dynamic change, with operating system-level virtualiz
ation, partial virtualization for management, and hardware virtualization.
Platform costs have stayed relatively flat. Storage costs have increased due to
the tremendous explosion in data, resulting in solutions that now require more s
torage space. Attachments in e-mail have grown in size, rich media such as video
has higher bandwidth requirements, and databases continue to grow in size. Also
, industry regulations require information to be kept for longer periods of time
.
Media-rich solutions are driving up the demand on the network infrastructure. To
meet those demands, newer technologies must be implemented, which bring increas
ed network costs. Software costs have gone up overall from the addition of the v
irtualization layer required in the stack. Server consolidation is reducing the
overall quantity of server hardware costs; however, those costs are shifting to
software and network resources.
Organizational costs have gone up. This is because of increased organizational r
oles, such as virtualization administrators and development roles, and also beca
use of the coordination needed due to the high complexity and high touch created
by the overlaps. In fact, the majority of IT operational costs are spent on sim
ply maintaining systems as opposed to developing new applications and enhancing
value.
The necessity for a unified computing solution is derived from the way server te
chnology has been deployed in the last 10 years, which can be described as an ev
olution in size but not in thinking. More servers and switches are being deploye
d without significant advancement in management integration. Virtualization has
helped and also amplified the problem, reducing the number of physical servers n
eeded, but leading to more and more virtualized servers.
As a result, there are substantially more points to manage. This makes it more d
ifficult to secure, scale, and maintain policy coherence.
The Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) C-Series Rack-Mount Servers extend unif
ied computing innovations to an industry-standard form factor to help reduce tot
al cost of ownership (TCO) and increase business agility. These innovations help
bring unified computing benefits to enterprise data centers, branch offices, an
d remote offices. The series demonstrates Ciscoâ s commitment to unified computing an
d the standards-based nature of the Cisco UCS architecture.
The series enables organizations to deploy servers incrementallyâ using as many or as
few servers as neededâ on a schedule that best meets the organizationâ s particular timi
g and budget. The series offers multiple routes for adopting Cisco Unified Compu
ting System technologies, with each product in the series designed to address di
fferent workload challenges through a varying balance of processing, memory, I/O
, and internal storage resources. In addition, organizations gain the benefit of
Ciscoâ s hallmark investment protection through a future migration path to unified c
omputing on a schedule that best suits their needs.
When deployed as standalone servers, the Cisco UCS C-Series provides a powerful,
flexible, virtualization-optimized foundation for data center infrastructure. O
rganizations deploying these servers as part of the Cisco Unified Computing Syst
em tap into the market transition that Cisco is leading with various innovations
that include the Intel Nehalem processor and Cisco's memory expansion, I/O virt
ualization, and unified fabric.
Cisco UCS C-Series Rack-Mount Servers give customers the option of purchasing Ci
sco server technologies from their trusted Data Center Networking Infrastructure
(DCNI) partners, offering a choice of supplier and service options. This enable
s a partner to expand its data center practice and broaden its Cisco portfolio f
or increased service opportunity. The series offers an evolution from traditiona
l server infrastructure to unified computing, and provides greater investment pr
otection than traditional rack-mount servers. All these factors help accelerate
the simplification and unification of the virtualized data center.
System innovations:
Innovations of Cisco Unified Computing System and benefits to rack-mount servers
include:
The servers are designed to operate in the form-factor-neutral Cisco Uni
fied Computing System.
They Provide standards-based, lossless, low-latency, 10 Gigabit Ethernet
unified network fabric.
They provide a virtualization-optimized platform, with Cisco VN-Link tec
hnology, processor support for virtualized environments, and the memory footprin
t to support virtualized environments.
They use patented Cisco Extended Memory Technology.
UCS evolution path
The Cisco UCS C-Series Rack-Mount Servers offers the first rack-mount servers av
ailable anywhere with an evolution path to unified computing, which provides ben
efits such as:
Standalone servers: the series offers a powerful, flexible, virtualizati
on-optimized compute foundation with features that address specific customer wor
kload challenges.
When integrated into the Cisco Unified Computing System, the servers bec
ome part of a single cohesive system designed to reduce TCO.
Organizations can invest in Cisco UCS C-Series Servers today and evolve
to the Cisco Unified Computing System as their needs dictate.
Customer Choice:
Cisco UCS C-Series Rack-Mount Servers increases customer choice with unique bene
fits in a familiar rack-mount package. Characteristics of the rack-mount package
include:
Industry-leading technology provides differentiation and value in what