New Trio for Global Architecture: Cisco, NetApp and VMware

As enterprises move toward a data center that is 100 percent virtualized, Cisco Systems, Inc., NetApp, Inc. and VMware, Inc. are expanding their long-standing collaboration to deliver new design architectures that help customers evolve virtualized data centers to be more efficient, dynamic and secure.

The three companies introduced an end-to-end Secure Multi-tenancy Design Architecture that provides enhanced security in cloud environments by isolating the information technology (IT) resources and applications of different clients, business units or departments that share a common IT infrastructure. As part of their collaboration, Cisco, NetApp and VMware will also offer a cooperative support model for these pretested and validated design architectures to help customers quickly build a unified, virtualized infrastructure.

"It’s clear that a tremendous opportunity exists for Cisco, NetApp and VMware to enable real change in the data center," said Tom Georgens, president and CEO of NetApp. "Our visions are aligned around the concept of a dynamic data center that will be the foundation of cloud computing and that will enable enterprises, integrators and service providers to deliver IT as a service [ITaaS]. In this scenario, IT becomes a dynamic asset that is more efficient and can better adapt to changing business needs. This new era of IT has stringent infrastructure requirements that our companies are ready to meet today – together."

"Virtualization of the network, server and storage infrastructure is radically reshaping today’s data center," said Paul Maritz, president and CEO, VMware. "The dynamic data center built on VMware vSphere, along with Cisco and NetApp technologies, will provide the foundation for both private and public clouds and the ability to move data and applications between these clouds. A shared virtual infrastructure requires that resources for different tenants are isolated while delivering on promised service levels. We have integrated our technology with Cisco and NetApp not only to accelerate our customers’ journey through their data center transition, but also to deliver an outstanding customer experience."

"A unified architecture approach is more important than ever before," says Tony Bates, senior vice president and general manager, Enterprise, Commercial and Small Business at Cisco. "Our joint vision with NetApp and VMware centers on delivering a unified architecture for customers to design and build a complete, virtualized data center that will streamline operations and improve their business resilience."

New Secure Multi-tenancy Meets Virtualization
and Enterprise Cloud Security Requirements
Secure Multi-tenancy Design Architecture is an end-to-end, validated design architecture that isolates IT resources for enhanced security in shared virtual and enterprise cloud environments. The design architecture helps enterprise customers, systems integrators and service providers develop internal and external cloud services that isolate clients, business units, departments or security zones for enhanced security across the computing, networking, storage and management layers of a unified infrastructure. The Secure Multi-tenancy Design Architecture provides details about implementing and configuring the architecture, as well as best practices for building and managing best-in-class solutions from Cisco, NetApp and VMware. This validated design architecture significantly increases business agility by helping IT administrators to establish the appropriate quality of service for each resource layer and to deliver consistent service performance levels for the applications in each layer.

"Examworks requires a flexible and dynamic infrastructure that allows us to rapidly integrate disparate technologies, virtualize key applications, and then offer them as a service to our broad family of companies via a secure, internal cloud infrastructure," said Brian Denton, chief technology officer, Examworks, Inc. "By integrating best-in-class technologies, Cisco, NetApp, and VMware have delivered unprecedented agility, efficiency, and cost savings. A validated Secure Multi-tenancy design architecture from these three industry leaders will be a necessity for companies looking to develop cloud services that isolate data across a highly secure, shared virtualized infrastructure."

The Secure Multi-tenancy Design Architecture is based on Cisco Nexus Series Switches and the Cisco Unified Computing System, NetApp FAS storage with MultiStore, and VMware vSphere and vShield Zones. The design reference architecture has been jointly tested and validated as a Cisco Validated Design so customers can quickly assess their needs and deploy integrated solutions from Cisco, NetApp and VMware that meet the stringent requirements of their dynamic data centers.

"The IT industry is in the midst of a radical transformation as companies look for flexible, unified computing architectures that can deliver dynamic, on-demand services cost effectively," said Russ Fellows, senior partner, Evaluator Group. "The driving force behind this shift is the need to align IT costs with business by shifting from static single-purpose IT systems to new on-demand IT services available in the data centers of the future. These pretested and validated architectures will help IT organizations achieve their goals faster, while minimizing the risk of moving to a new virtualized data center."

Cooperative Professional Services
and Support to Enable ITaaS
As customers embark on their journey to ITaaS, Cisco, NetApp and VMware will provide a cooperative set of professional services to deliver an outstanding customer experience and help channel partners deploy a Secure Multi-tenancy Design Architecture with the least risk to their customers’ current environment.

As part of this collaboration, Cisco, NetApp and VMware also introduced a global 24-hour cooperative support model. This model offers customers a more streamlined response from Cisco, NetApp and VMware to identify and solve potential issues related to the solutions used in the Secure Multi-tenancy Design Architecture. This saves customers’ time and resources when they request product and technology support.

Availability
The unified storage, unified computing, networking and virtualization solutions that make up the Secure Multi-tenancy Design Architecture are available today from Cisco, NetApp and VMware and in production data centers around the world. Cooperative professional services and support are also available today.

Cisco, NetApp, and VMware are also working with many channel partners, systems integrators, and service providers that deliver best-in-class services that will use the Secure Multi-tenancy Design Architecture and cooperative support model to deliver customers a completely integrated solution and quickly help them transform their data centers into a shared virtualized infrastructure.

"Cisco, NetApp and VMware are the top networking, storage and virtualization vendors in the IT industry," said Yue Liu, GM of ECCOM Network Storage System Ltd. "Their customers have achieved great success based on their advanced products and technology. Their joint collaboration will have an even greater impact to their customers and the industry as a whole with one complete solution for data center and cloud infrastructures. As the professional service and solution provider for information infrastructure, Cisco, NetApp and VMware will enable ECCOM to provide an outstanding experience to our mutual customers in building their next generation of data centers."

"Virtualized data centers empower organizations to reduce costs, increase efficiency and better react to today’s dynamic business climate," said Chris Finney, vice president, Data Center & Systems, ePlus Technology. "Cloud computing is the next step in the data center and requires best-in-class technology partners to continue to drive this transformation. ePlus is pleased to work with Cisco, NetApp and VMware to create leading cloud solutions backed by our own data center solutions capabilities."

"Cloud computing and the move from a physical to a virtual infrastructure continue to be among the most significant IT transformations we see today," comments Richard Zimmermann, Forsythe vice president of Network Solutions. "As an IT infrastructure integrator, Forsythe has been helping its customers integrate disparate technologies in complex physical, and now also virtual, environments for a long time. Our focus is on helping clients optimize the cost of operating their data centers. Accordingly, we are excited to see collaborations such as Cisco, NetApp and VMware that strive to simplify customers’ implementation and operation of converged virtual environments."

"INX believes that cloud computing is the next wave of IT infrastructure," said Jon Groves, vice president of Professional Services, INX. "Enterprises are looking to cloud computing to help reduce costs, increase business agility and deliver an efficient environment through a virtualized, shared infrastructure. We are very pleased to be working with world-class technology partners such as Cisco, NetApp and VMware to provide customers with best-of-breed cloud solutions backed by an experienced IT services leader."

"Cloud computing business models and technologies hold great potential to help our government customers meet their unique mission requirements. Secure cloud architectures such as this collaborative multi-tenant design architecture from NetApp, Cisco, and VMware, can serve to meet mission requirements while at the same time, accelerating private, public and hybrid cloud adoption in the federal marketplace. It is one more example of innovation among the technology community to deliver seamless security, which aligns with Lockheed Martin’s Cyber Security Alliance partner initiatives," said Curt Aubley, CTO Cyber & NexGen Innovation, Lockheed Martin Information Systems & Global Services.

"Logicalis welcomes this validated design from Cisco, NetApp, and VMware to simplify the deployment of ‘cloud’ solutions for our enterprise and public sector customers," said Tom Kelly, Managing Director, Logicalis UK. "What customers need now are partners able to deliver these private cloud solutions and willing to invest in building matched hosted solutions, and Logicalis intends to step up to the mark on both counts."

"Enterprises are being called on to cut costs, scrutinize new investments and become highly efficient in everything they do — and nowhere more so than in the data center," said Kent MacDonald, vice president, Infrastructure Solutions, Long View Systems. "Long View Systems is excited to see the collaboration of our strategic partners Cisco, NetApp and VMware uniting three IT visionaries that have changed the way that organizations manage their IT infrastructure. This is not a vision, but a proven ability to execute together to drive down costs and improve availability and responsiveness to business challenges."

"Cloud computing is the next step for organizations looking to decrease costs, increase productivity and provide agile IT services for their business," said Tony Regier, executive vice president, Storage Solutions, MSI Systems Integrators. "Sound solutions include technologies from industry-leading IT manufacturers and systems integrators such as MSI whose focus is on providing efficient and optimized IT infrastructures. The relationship between Cisco, NetApp and VMware allows MSI to provide world-class, cloud-based solutions for our clients."

"Virtualized cloud computing has proven its ability to reduce capital expenditures in the data center while significantly improving reliability, scalability and management," said Kevin Watkins, vice president, Engineering, Presidio, Inc. "When our customers extend the concepts of virtualization to their network and storage infrastructures, the service improvements and capital savings are even greater. Presidio is very pleased to be working with Cisco, NetApp and VMware as we provide virtualized data center solutions for our clients. Their advanced technologies, combined with Presidio’s architecture and engineering capabilities, result in some of the most advanced, cost-effective data center solutions in the industry."

"Enterprises are looking to public and private cloud infrastructures to increase business agility and deliver a highly efficient computing environment," said Bob Olwig, vice president, Corporate Business Development, World Wide Technology, Inc. "World Wide Technology is very pleased to join forces with our world-class technology partners Cisco, NetApp and VMware to provide our government, commercial, and service-provider customers with best-of-breed, virtualized cloud solutions."

More on the collaboration between Cisco, NetApp and VMware