Cisco and Dell team up on data centres

Dell and Cisco are teaming up on a next-generation virtualisated data centre system, offering networking as well as storage and servers.

The system will feature storage, computing and networking in a virtual environment, Dell said. It will feature Cisco's Nexus 5020 switches supporting 10GB Ethernet or Fibre Channel over Ethernet to Dell's Power Edge Server and storage solutions.

"What it means is we'll be able to certify the end-to-end solution," said Robin Kuepers, head of storage for EMEA at Dell, speaking to IT PRO. He added that situation lets Dell do the support itself. "For us, it's about having a full end-to-end solution for data centres."

The package is set to be bundled, offering small and medium businesses an out of the box data centre and one that's easy to take virtual, as well. "We're just at the beginning of being able to offer fully virtualised data centres products out of the box," Kuepers said, adding pricing for bundled packages should be available within a few weeks.