In order to support Microsoft's Windows Server 2012 hypervisor and VM management along with their respective data center and cloud architectures for joint customers, Cisco has extended its data center product line.
With this alliance, Cisco has given programmatic access to Microsoft’s customers to its Unified Computing System .This will enable simplified deployment and operations of data centers utilizing products adherent to Cisco's Unified Data Center and Microsoft's Fast Track 3.0 architectures.
Cisco is now supporting Microsoft's Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch and System Centre Virtual Machine Manager 2012 SP1 in its Nexus 1000V virtual switch to allow customers to virtualize certain aspects of their data center networks alongside physical networking and cloud computing infrastructure.
With UCS VM-FEX, administrators can treat the physical and virtual elements of their networks as a single infrastructure for provisioning, configuration, management, monitoring and troubleshooting.
Through the UCS Manager's XML-based Open API, users of Microsoft's Systems Centre 2012 SP1 application can access Cisco's PowerTool of Microsoft's PowerShell utility to provision, configure, orchestrate and monitor physical and virtual infrastructures, and Windows Server and application software running on UCS servers.
As per Cisco, the UCS Management Pack will allow customers to monitor and manage their Cisco Unified Data Center with a single interface.
Cisco will also be offering customers a choice of integrated reference architectures combining Microsoft Fast Track and Cisco products with EMC storage under the VSPEX programme, or NetApp through the FlexPod initiative. Both have been validated for the Microsoft Private Cloud Fast Track 3.0 programme.
