Cisco entered the blade server market in a big way five years ago with its Unified Computing System (UCS) environment, taking on IBM, HP, and Oracle in the heart of the cloud computing hardware business.
Now it is extending UCS “introducing significant innovations,” in the company’s words, by expanding its offering and addressing Big Data and the IoT. Mobility, video, and a continued focus on cloud are all part of the strategy, according to Paul Perez, VP & General Manager of Cisco UCS.
The new offering encompasses Cisco UCS M-Series Modular Servers for “cloud-scale applications,” according to Perez, and the Cisco UCS Mini “for small-scale and enterprise-edge environments.”.
“Additionally, an expansion of the current UCS portfolio brings new levels of power and scalability for a wide range of data center workloads by unveiling new fourth-generation UCS Rack and Blade Servers for application performance,” according to a company statement, “and new UCS Director solutions to manage Big Data infrastructure workloads.”
The M-Series systems can eliminate up to 95% of the system components duplicated in a traditional server design, according to Cisco, delivering as much as 36% combined TCO savings, the company reports.
On the edge, the UCS Mini is delivered as an “all-in-one solution” to deliver servers, storage, and networking in a compact form factor. The system is also said to bring a savings of as much as 36% in TCO.
A recent IDC report says Cisco is now leads the X86 blade server market in the Americas market, and has seen revenue growth of 39% worldwide on a cumulative four-quarter basis ending Q1 2014.