Cisco bolsters its switch lineup
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- Published on Tuesday, 18 October 2011 17:10
Cisco on Tuesday launched a series of network switches aimed to win a larger chunk of the data center and keep its lucrative franchise going.
The company’s switch business—a $14 billion in sales unit—has been under fire from HP, which is aiming to grab share as well as other companies such as Juniper. However, Cisco has recently restructured and is focused on its enterprise footprint. A big part of Cisco’s turnaround revolves around protecting its position in switches and other networking gear.
With that backdrop, Cisco is launching its second generation Nexus 7000 switches and fabric support for its Nexus 5500 switch. Cisco said its switches add up to its unified fabric portfolio. The networking giant’s presentation took direct aim at Juniper.
Shashi Kiran, marketing manager of data Center and virtualization, disputed the notion that Cisco is fighting for a larger slice of a shrinking pie. Kiran said that data center investment for enterprise, Web 2.0 and everything in between remains solid. Businesses continue to spend on data centers as a way to save money and build a competitive advantage.
Among the key items:
- New Nexus 7000 switches that include a new Fabric 2 module and line cards designed to cut power per port. The next-gen switch also has more throughput and can download the U.S. Library of Congress in 90 seconds.
- The Nexus 5500 has a top of rack form factor that allows for better scalability and Cisco’s FEX adapter that makes wiring easier. In a nutshell, FEX allows a rack of switches to be operated as one, said Ram Velaga, vice president of product management and data center solutions at Cisco.
- A Nexus 7009 switch that’s more compact and designed to be used in campus environments.
- The Nexus 3000 series with low latency characteristics for high frequency trading, big data and Web 2.0 deployments.
- A security appliance dubbed the Cisco ASA 1000V.
Pricing will be disclosed at a later date.
(ZDNet news)
