Cisco
Systems executives last week gave a broad outline of new
technologies that the networking equipment maker will pursue in
coming years, including datacentre virtualisation products and
management software.
John Chambers,
Cisco's president and Chief executive, has been hounded by analysts
in recent months about the products Cisco plans to add to its line
of "advanced technologies," which includes offerings for IP
telephony, wireless applications, storage, security and optical and
home networking.
In an interview
and during his keynote speech at Cisco's Worldwide Analyst
Conference in California, Chambers declined to provide full details
about the company's plans, and said he does not want to tip off
rival suppliers. But he said datacentre virtualisation is one
technology Cisco will support, following its announcement late last
year of upgraded MDS 9000 storage switches that let virtual
storage-area networks share disk arrays and tape libraries.
Charles Giancarlo,
Cisco's chief technology officer, said the company would apply
virtualisation in the datacentre to storage devices as well as
servers and applications. He said Cisco's datacentre technology
architecture will rely on what he called "intelligent processor
switching," which would bring together blade, web and database
servers.
One technology
that will develop out of the datacentre virtualisation concept is
"application-aware networking" or layer 4-7 switching, which
Chambers described as "huge" in potential.
Cisco routing
technology general manager Mike Volpi demonstrated a new hardware
product, which seems to fall into what Chambers described as layer
4-7 switching. The appliance, called a service control engine, will
be used primarily by service providers, Volpi said, but could also
be sold to enterprises. Based on technology from Cisco's
acquisition of P-Cube earlier this year, it allows a carrier to
help customers customise voice over IP (VoIP) services, such as
adding a new VoIP phone line or setting parental controls on
internet browsing.
Similarly, a
corporation could use it to restrict a department from certain uses
and or as a means of chargeback, to monitor network usage by a
branch or division.
Another potential
technology expansion from Cisco could be a range of new systems
management products, similar to software being offered by
Hewlett-Packard, Computer Associates and IBM Tivoli, said Dennis
Drogseth, an analyst for Enterprise Management Associates.
Mario Mazzola,
chief development officer for Cisco, said Cisco will partner with
other framework management suppliers to provide such products, but
gave few specifics. "We are going to rely on partnerships to bring
a level of system management," Mazzola told analysts, promising
details in the next few months.
Drogseth said
Cisco's move toward management is "encouraging" but will play out
over many years. Cisco has long sold management software for its
own switches and routers, but has not provided more general
management software covering an entire system's health, including
servers and applications.
He noted that
Cisco's concept of datacentre virtualisation will require more
sophisticated management software. "That is a cultural lesson Cisco
has to learn pervasively across the company. Without management,
virtualisation is merely a nice hat trick."
He said he met
with Cisco management software architects this week and was assured
they understand how Cisco software can work with software from
other suppliers.
Matt Hamblen writes for Computerworld