Big players back Cisco's data center plans

Microsoft, Intel, BMC, EMC Smarts and VMware are set to endorse Cisco's 'Unified Computing' data centre strategy, to be launched next week.

Sources say these companies will be on the roster of partners Cisco is lining up for its strategy, which is also expected to include the introduction of the company's 'California' blade servers. Blade server stalwarts IBM and HP are - or were - longtime partners of Cisco's in data centre applications, but California is expected to strain those relationships and keep those companies off Cisco's partner list this time around.

IBM is uniting with Juniper for Project Stratus; and HP is expected to tightly link its blade server and ProCurve networking operations for next-generation data centre opportunities. ... Go to source