A move to the Cloud offers IT organizations many clear advantages. It can offer greater business flexibility, lower costs, and enable a “work from anywhere” world that employees are now demanding. A Cloud business strategy is also creating opportunity for IT organizations to wipe the slate clean and start fresh both in terms of their infrastructure and vendor relationships, says Jason Reil, National Strategic Alliance Manager, Cisco Canada.
“IT organizations are using some non-traditional thinking in their approach as they build out their Cloud strategies,” notes Reil. “We’re seeing that thinking play out in terms of the teams we’re talking to within the organization, in the technologies we’re delivering, and even in the competitors we are seeing.”
One of the changes Cisco is witnessing within IT organizations is a move away from the assembly of individual components and a shift toward converged architectures that incorporate the server, networking, storage and even virtualization components. “In a traditional IT organization, networking, storage and server teams typically worked in silos. The Cloud is now forcing these teams to collaborate in new ways. In turn, they are looking to engage with a new breed of vendors who understand how the server, networking, storage and virtualization come together and work in an orchestrated way,” says Reil. “A converged architecture offers businesses moving to the Cloud a turn-key, pre-integrated solution that can be pulled down on demand and deployed quickly to meet today’s needs, then tuned over time as the Cloud strategy evolves. “
FlexPod®, is a pre-designed, pre-tested and validated data centre Cloud solution built by Cisco in partnership with NetApp. This modular and unified architecture, comprised of Cisco UCS servers, Cisco Nexus switches, and NetApp unified storage systems running DataONTAP, allows IT shops to take the guesswork out of building a Cloud solution. FlexPod allows a business to achieve timely, repeatable, consistent deployments and grow on demand. It is a technology purpose-built for the Cloud, and its flexibility allows IT to better support today’s increasingly virtualized and fluid workplace environment.
Today’s network consists of expandable fabric that supports virtualization and mobility,” says Jason Reil. “FlexPod exists within that fabric as a whole stack offering allowing the entire workload to move together in orchestration.”
Are you moving to the Cloud and contemplating the benefits of a converged architecture? Let FoxNet be your guide. Contact us today at info@206.198.185.142 to discuss your needs.
