Cisco gets tough: Details ruggedized switches for harsh environments

In small form factor, CGS-1000 switch is low-latency and designed for utilities

Cisco, which wants to expand its clout into the industrial networks used by power-generation utilities to support the electric grid, today announced an expansion of its "smart grid" portfolio with ruggedized and low-latency switches and other equipment intended for use in electric-power distribution systems.

"Utilities often have systems unique to them," said Jenny Gomez, marketing manager in Cisco's Connected Energy Business Unit that oversees the architecting of a wide range of equipment for networking and physical security to modernize utility networks while supporting their legacy systems that in some cases aren't being swapped out. As part of this effort, Cisco today introduced a number of products, including the CGS-1000 switch in a small form factor for use in a location such as an electric substation that's part of a complex, critical power-distribution system.

"The CGS-1000 is built to withstand harsh environments," pointed out Joe Ammirato, senior director of product management at Cisco's Connected Energy Business Unit. The ruggedized low-latency switch is intended to be able to work with utility sensors that often have serial interfaces, not Ethernet ones, Ammirato noted.

With experience gained over a few years in working with some utilities in North America and Europe, Cisco has been designing specialized switching, network access and security products for both data center and substation equipment under its so-called GridBlocks architecture. The push is part of Cisco's much-ballyhooed "Internet of Everything" initiative that's taking the company further into areas outside of traditional business IT networking.

The GridBlocks architecture supposes that Cisco will be able to provide equipment aimed not only at the substation tier, but also the system-control level where wide-area networks connect substations with each other and with control systems as well as SCADA and other event messaging.

The architecture also addresses utility data centers and control centers, plus devices and systems associated with residences and third-party elements. The Cisco GridBlocks architecture lists several other tiers for interchange and trans-national grid monitoring and tie-ins as well. In many cases, Cisco isn't coming up with entirely new products for the utilities but adapting its network segmentation, switching, security and management platforms to try and suit specialized needs utilities have.

Cisco is recommending MPLS as a core technology for utility use, especially in substations, says Ammirato, who points out that utility networks associated with the grid may not necessarily be IP-based at all today or they connect in a style not seen in modern IT business networks. For utilities intending to modernize, the challenge is in swapping out what can reasonably be changed while bridging older legacy systems that for one reason or another will remain related to the transmission grid.

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Cisco readying a new Nexus switch

Nexus 3500 will feature ultra low latency, target Infiniband

Cisco has another Nexus Ethernet data center switch in the works, this one with ultra-low latency and a more formidable rival to Infiniband.

Details on the Nexus 3500 are unavailable. Cisco wouldn't discuss it when asked about an online ad seeking a software engineer for it.

"This is to be announced later," a Cisco spokesperson e-mailed. "No details to share yet."

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Sources, however, say the Nexus 3500 will feature 250 nanosecond port-to-port latency and integrated network address translation. They say it will give Infiniband a run for the money, especially when combined with a new NIC from Cisco called usNIC.

"If this product does come out with latency as stated, it will dominate the silicon industry slamming down on Broadcom and more importantly Fulcrum," the source says. "But also compete with Mellanox and close the gap with Infiniband. Cisco will be untouchable in ultra low latency switching."

RedHat has apparently run tests of usNIC with its MRG-M high performance computing software. Slides 16-18 of this presentation appear to show performance improvements of MRG-M when running usNIC vs. Infiniband.

Red Hat was not immediately available for comment. But our source said it, along with the Nexus 3500, could be a viable alternative to Infiniband.

"That, combined with this new Nexus 3500 having 250ns latency would be a compelling solution against Infiniband," the source said. "If Cisco launches Nexus 3500 in the next few months and combines usNIC in the launch it will finally be the first Ethernet solution that can compete against (Infiniband)...(and) shows Cisco intent to kill Infiniband with Ethernet."

Mellanox is a leading Infiniband networking vendor. Requests to the company for comment were not answered by posting time.

Cisco currently offers the Nexus 3000 line for low-latency, top-of-rack switching targeted at high-frequency financial trading, as well as the Nexus 7000, 5000 and 2000 lines for data center fabric switching.

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Cisco Intros New UCS Blade, Rack Servers

The new Intel-based systems are aimed at a wide range of workloads, from virtualization and databases to Web 2.0 and big data.

Cisco Systems is expanding its converged Unified Computing Systems portfolio, adding four new Intel-powered servers that are primarily aimed at scale-out environments as well as a new virtual networking card.

The offerings include two new rack servers and a blade server powered by Intel’s new Xeon E5-2400 chips for dual-socket systems, and another blade system running on Xeon E5-4600 processors, for four-socket servers. Intel released the two chip families in May, complementing the Xeon E5-2600 processors that were launched in March.

Cisco officials are leveraging them to expand the reach of their UCS line of converged data center solutions, which the company first rolled out three years ago. The networking giant has since seen its UCS business grow rapidly, now reaching more than 11,000 customers and having an annual run rate of almost $1.3 billion. Cisco also has more than 2,000 channel partners selling the solution.

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The new systems come three months after Cisco launched UCS 3.0, which included new servers powered by the Xeon E5-2600 chips, expanded fabric capabilities and new integrated networking and virtualization features. The latest offerings complement what Cisco already has done with the solution, according to Todd Brannon, product marketing manager for unified computing at Cisco.

“These new servers round out the UCS portfolio with an even stronger set of products optimized for scale-out and light general-purpose computing as well as a new price/performance [four-socket] category in the mid-range,” Brannon said in a June 18 blog post.

In addition, the new Virtual Interface Card (VIC) will add capabilities to what Brannon said is an important part of the overall story around the UCS.

“One of the key differentiators of UCS is the way in which high-capacity server network access has been aggregated through Cisco Virtual Interface Cards and infused with built-in high-performance virtual networking capabilities,” he wrote. “In ‘pre-UCS’ server system architectures, one of the main design considerations was the type and quantity of physical network adapters required. … In UCS, I/O is effectively taken off the table as a design worry because every server gets its full USRDA [U.S. recommended daily allowance] of networking through the VIC: heaping portions of bandwidth, rich with Fabric Extender technology vitamins that yield hundreds of Ethernet and FC adapters through one physical device. Gone are the days of hemming and hawing over how many mezz card slots your blade has or how many cards you’re going to need to feed that hungry stack of VM’s on your rack server. This simplification changes things for the better because it takes a lot of complication out of the equation.”

Introducing the UCS in 2009 marked a significant change in direction for Cisco. The all-in-one data center solution not only was featuring Cisco’s networking technology, but also Cisco-branded servers, as well as storage capabilities from EMC and NetApp and virtualization from VMware. Cisco became a server vendor, putting it in direct competition with companies like Hewlett-Packard, which had been a strong partner.

It also helped dial up the competition in the converged data center market, sparking others like HP and IBM to grow their offerings. Earlier this month, Dell unveiled its Converged Blade Data Center, which combines Dell’s 12th Generation PowerEdge servers, new EqualLogic storage blade arrays and Force10 MXL blade switching.

For its new servers, Cisco is leveraging the work Intel is doing with processors, Cisco’s Bannon said. The new servers, which are aimed at such tasks as Web 2.0, big data and mainstream IT infrastructure, include the UCS B22 M3 blade and C22 M3 and C24 M3 rack systems, all powered by Intel Xeon E5-2400 processors.

In addition, Cisco is rolling out the B420 M3 blade system, which runs on Intel’s Xeon E5-4600 chips and is aimed at such workloads as virtualization and databases. The system supports 1.5 terabytes of memory and, with the new VIC1225 technology, offers up to 160G bps of I/O bandwidth.

“Intel has brought four socket server options, formerly the province of the mission-critical, ‘EX end of the spectrum, down into the mainstream,” Bannon wrote. “An example of this is our new UCS B420 blade. So if you want four socket core count and performance but don’t necessarily need the comprehensive RAS [reliability, availability, serviceability] features of an EX class system, you now have a price/performance optimized solution for that need.”

Intel introduced the Xeon E5-2400 and E5-4600 chips to ensure that the company is offering processor technology for a wide range of workloads, according to Boyd Davis, vice president and general manager of Intel’s Data Center Infrastructure Group.

“The data center’s a complicated place,” Davis said in an interview with Cisco taped during the Cisco Live conference. “Just delivering application performance isn’t enough. You have to deliver balance, and you really have to fit into the environments that customers are deploying today.”

Cisco all but kills Cius tablet computer

Cisco discontinues Cius investment and development in the face of BYOD, cloud computing

Cisco is slowly killing off its Cius business tablet less than a year after it started shipping.

The Android-based collaboration tool, which featured a 7-inch touchscreen and was not intended to challenge more consumer-oriented tablets such as the Apple iPad, fell victim to the BYOD trend and cloud computing, Cisco said in a blog post.

The post, authored by OJ Winge, senior vice president of Cisco's TelePresence Technology Group, states that Cisco will discontinue investment and development of the tablet, which we reviewed in February.

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NOT TODAY; OR EVER? 10 Compelling Apps for Cisco Cius

"... 95% of organizations surveyed allow employee-owned devices in some way, shape or form in the office, and, 36% of surveyed enterprises provide full support for employee-owned devices. These stats underscore a major shift in the way people are working, in the office, at home and on-the-go, a shift that will continue to gain momentum.

"Based on these market transitions, Cisco will no longer invest in the Cisco Cius tablet form factor, and no further enhancements will be made to the current Cius endpoint beyond what's available today. However, as we evaluate the market further, we will continue to offer Cius in a limited fashion to customers with specific needs or use cases," the post states.

Cisco will instead "double down" on software offerings like its Jabber and WebEx products for more popular tablets and smartphones supporting a variety of operating systems, the blog states. Cisco unveiled a version of Jabber for the iPad at the Enterprise Connect conference earlier this year.

"We will leverage key learnings and key collaboration experiences native to Cius in our other collaboration products," Winge states in his post.

Cisco has been discontinuing disappointing products over the past year, specifically in consumer-oriented collaboration. It killed its Flip pocket videocam and its umi home TelePresence unit.

According to Network World's Cius review, the tablet was only available through the Cisco partner network. It cost less than $750 for an endpoint and less than $350 for a media station, for a total of under $1,100.

Market timing played a key role in Cius' demise, according to Ted Schadler of Forrester Research. As Cisco was conceiving, developing and preparing to launch Cius into the enterprise, corporate workers were already bringing their iPads to work.

"As you look at Cisco's business and portfolio, did (offering a tablet endpoint) make sense at this point in time?" Schadler asked. "There had been three Christmases of CEOs bringing their iPads to work."

There's no longer a question of what tablet enterprises will use at work; it's not a question of how to support it, Schadler said.

"Now the focus is around collaboration tools," he said. "All Cisco needs is a client on an iPad, not an actual device."

And with the exploding trend of BYOD, the business case of developing dedicated hardware sitting on an executive's desk becomes "much less interesting," Schadler says. "Cisco should be end-point agnostic, focusing instead on integration in the back-end."

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Cisco, EMC, VMware unite behind big data, cloud training initiative

New training bundles are organized around specific disciplines and job roles, including cloud architect and data scientist

As the IT silos come down, tech pros need to beef up their skills to stay relevant and maximize the business benefits of cloud computing, virtualization, unified networking and big data, according to Cisco and EMC, which have teamed to offer training targeted at tech's hottest data center disciplines.

IT JOB SPOTTING: Top 20 metro areas for tech jobs
New job roles are emerging as companies adopt converged infrastructures, shift to cloud architectures, and wrangle with massive data stores, and enterprises need to prepare the IT workforce to handle their new roles, the vendors say.

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"There's some confusion around cloud, cloud-based services, and how to leverage the cloud as part of an overall organizational transformation. How do you move from classical data centers to virtual data centers to cloud-based data centers?" says Anthony Bryant, director of learning services at Learning@Cisco. "There's also confusion around how to transform the technical talent within this arena."

Unveiled this week, the training initiative from Cisco and EMC also includes resources from VMware. Their joint education bundles provide courseware and certifications related to cloud architecture, virtualization, storage, data center networking and data science. The bundles are organized around specific disciplines and job roles, including cloud architect, systems administrator, backup and recovery, data center network design and data scientist.

"The lines between the traditional silos, or pillars, in IT are starting to blur" in today's IT-as-a-service, cloud-based data center environments, says Alok Shrivastava, senior director of education services at EMC. "They have to, because one group or one function making a decision impacts everybody else," he says. "You might be a system admin or DBA or network admin, and you need to understand what's going on across the different technology areas in the data center."

In the Cisco/EMC/VMware training model, there's a path associated with each discipline that prescribes the required courses to become proficient. For instance, the systems administrator path requires these courses: Cloud Infrastructure and Services, VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage, and Cisco Data Center Unified Computing Implementation (DCUCI). Someone aspiring to be a data center network architect could follow a learning path that includes these courses: EMC Cloud Infrastructure and Services, Cisco Data Center Unified Fabric (DCUFD), and Configuring Cisco Nexus Data Center (CCNDC).

IT pros can opt to purchase courses by the bundle or individually. The training is delivered via instructor-led courses, instructor-led video training, or, in certain cases, on-site instruction at a customer premises.

From the perspective of a CIO of a 1,000-person IT organization, "the success of cloud transformation depends on the team. Beyond the technologies, unless the team has bought into it and has developed new skill sets, the project could very well fail," Shrivastava says. "It becomes extremely critical for CIOs to transform the workforce."