Faster, Greener, Cheaper -- Part II: Cisco Unified Computing System

With a previous post, we've started a series looking into ways to make your network faster, even greener, with the further possible upside of being cheaper to maintain. Last time, we looked at making your network greener with Cisco's EnergyWise technology. This time, let's look at Unified Computing System (UCS) Servers, another of Cisco's technologies that can make it faster and cheaper to run and maintain your network.

Network Optimization with Cisco UCS

Cisco's Unified Computing System provides a scalable framework for building out both the virtualized and the non-virtualized components of your network. As Cisco states:

Key [UCS] differentiators include:

• • Programmable infrastructure via service profiles that abstract the personality, configuration, and connectivity of server and I/O resources
  • Unified, model-based management applies personality and configures server and I/O resources to automate the administration process.
  • Cisco Port Extender technology simplifies the system by condensing three network layers into one, eliminating blade chassis and hypervisor-based switches and bringing all traffic to a single point where it is efficiently and consistently managed.

Make Your Network Faster and Cheaper with Cisco UCS

As you may be in the process of moving more and more of your network to increasingly virtualized configurations, the top-to-bottom integration of managed services, data storage, and network resources provided by UCS can ease your transition from more traditional hardware to bare-metal and more fully virtualized networking environments. You already know that virtualization can save you money. UCS gives you opportunity both to reduce your hardware footprint, and its associated costs, with virtualization and to increase network efficiency and improve network management with a more tightly integrated architecture.

Managing UCS with SolarWinds

SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM) is an effective network monitor that offers predefined reports and web console views and resources specifically tailored to display performance data provided by Cisco UCS manager devices. For more technical information about SolarWinds NPM, see the SolarWinds Orion NPM Administrator Guide.

Portions of this document are excerpted from "Unified Computing Technology - Cisco Systems" at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps10265/technology.html.