Cisco told business users at its Networkers 2008 conference that it will release more network management hardware and software under its Data Centre 3.0 product suite to speed the delivery of enterprise software applications.
Analysts said the release of these tools aim to strengthen Cisco’s hold in data centres by providing the underlying network infrastructure, in addition to providing standards based applications such as videoconferencing, voice communications and collaboration to run over the network.
Cisco announced several new optimisation products at the conference in Barcelona today. These included the Cisco ACE 4710 appliance, which allocates the computing power of virtual servers to run specific applications faster; and Cisco WAAS mobile software, which provides application acceleration for mobile workers.
Ram Velga, senior director of data centres for Cisco, said deciding how to make the best use of bandwidth when applications needed more processing power was the main challenge for network managers in the data centre.
“The ongoing trend of consolidation - people pulling more network applications into a tighter space – and the ongoing trend to virtualise servers and storage increases the bandwidth required and changes the addressing schemes network managers must have in place to make sure their applications run,” he said.