Cisco Unified Data Center Platform
A variety of virtualization, computing, storage, and cloud technologies have entered the market to help increase scalability and flexibility in the data center, but each new technology layer introduced makes the data center more complex and less agile.
The Cisco Unified Data Center is a comprehensive, fabric-based platform that integrates computing, networking, security, virtualization, and management solutions into a single, highly efficient, and simplified architecture. The platform does not just accommodate virtualization; it was designed to build on the advantages of virtualization, increasing the density, performance, mobility, and security of data center resources. The result is a platform that is significantly easier to scale than other solutions, whether you are adding processing power within the data center, expanding geographic coverage by linking multiple data centers, or securely connecting additional users and devices.
This less complex, unified approach also facilitates the introduction of automation, which can dramatically increase data center efficiency, productivity, and agility, including the capability to manage deployment and operations across physical and virtual resources, which is critical to the delivery of IT as a Service (ITaaS). Less complexity means faster time to value—a significant advantage over other data center architectures.
The Cisco Unified Data Center is based on three pillars of Cisco innovation: Unified Fabric, Unified Computing, and Unified Management, as shown in Figure 1-1.
Figure 1-1 Cisco Unified Data Center
Unified Fabric
Cisco’s fabric-based approach to data center infrastructure eliminates the tiered silos and inefficiencies of multiple network domains, instead offering a flatter, unified fabric that allows consolidation of local area network (LAN), storage area network (SAN), and network-attached storage (NAS) over one high-performance and fault-tolerant network. Cisco Unified Fabric delivers massive scalability and resiliency to the data center by creating large pools of virtualized network resources that can be easily moved and rapidly reprovisioned. This approach reduces complexity and enables automated deployment of new virtual machines and applications. Deep integration between the architecture of the server and the network enables delivery of secure IT services within the data center, between data centers, or beyond the data center to users from any device. Cisco Unified Fabric is based on the Cisco Nexus family of switches, which runs on a common operating system named Cisco NX-OS.
Unified Computing
This highly scalable computing solution integrates servers, flash-memory acceleration, and networking with embedded management and automation to simplify operations for physical, virtual, and cloud workloads. Cisco Unified Computing solution is based on the Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS). Cisco UCS integrates industry-standard x86-architecture servers, access and storage networking, and enterprise-class management into a single system for greater speed, simplicity, and scalability. Cisco UCS eliminates the multiple redundant devices that populate traditional blade servers and add layers of management complexity. When used within the high-bandwidth, low-latency Cisco Unified Fabric framework, Cisco UCS gives IT managers a wire-once platform for providing highly elastic and agile pools of virtualized resources. Cisco UCS is massively scalable to hundreds of blades and thousands of virtual machines, all with a single point of connectivity and management. Every aspect of the system’s configuration can be programmed through an intuitive GUI using automated rules and policies and operating across bare-metal, virtualized, and cloud computing environments. Open standards-based application programming interfaces (APIs) offer exceptional flexibility for integration of diverse application, virtualization, storage, and system management solutions.
