Cisco Touts UCS-S Data Centre Alternative To Public Cloud

Cisco claims its storage-optimised UCS S-Series of servers can store and analyse data cheaper than the public cloud such as Amazon Web Services (AWS).

The equipment is designed to address the needs of data intensive workloads such as Big Data, and for deploying software-defined storage, object storage, and data protection solutions.

The first in the UCS S-series is the UCS S3260 Storage Server, which Cisco claims is an ‘industry first’ for offering a fully modular architecture. This, coupled with its automation of UCS Manager, means that the S3260 lowers total cost of ownership (TCO) by over 50 percent compared to public cloud, Cisco claims.

Data Centre Kit

Cisco goes on to make other bold claims about the UCS S3260 when compared ‘traditional servers’, saying it reduces CapEx by up to 34 percent; lowers ongoing management by up to 80 percent; reduces cabling by up to 70 percent; takes up to 60 percent less space; and finally consumes up to 59 percent less power

It seems the UCS S3260 comes with a wide range of capacity and performance options, including up to 600 Terabytes of storage capacity per system, frictionless scaling up to Petabytes with UCS Manager, cache acceleration, and unified I/O connectivity for any type of data storage.

“With these capabilities, organisations can move from inactive data in warehouses and clouds to dynamic applications on a cloud-scale platform with high-speed processing to activate, analyse and act on data in real time,” said Cisco.

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Secure Endpoints

Cisco had other news for the data centre after revealing an upgrade to its ONE Enterprise Cloud Suite. The platform delivers hybrid cloud for automation across the entire IT organisation and user base, as it can deploy to over 20 different data centre, private and public cloud environments. Customers can also now purchase annual subscription licenses in one, three, and five-year options.

But perhaps more significant is the arrival of the Cisco AMP for Endpoints, which combines prevention, detection and response to simplify endpoint security, as many firms are currently struggling to protect mobile users, desktops, laptops and servers against advanced malware attacks.

This is because businesses have traditionally layer products on top of each other as and when needed, to protect the organisation. But Cisco argues this has created operational complexity and inefficiency, and it points out that it takes enterprises, on average, over 100 days to detect a threat in their own environment.

The idea behind AMP for Endpoints is offer firms a simpler, more effective endpoint security system. It combines prevention, detection and response in one SaaS-deployed, cloud-managed solution, in order to reduce complexity. This cloud-based approach with AMP for Endpoints should help IT teams obtain actionable intelligence faster than traditional systems.

AMP for Endpoints includes built-in sandboxing technology to quarantine and analyse unknown files, and offers continuous monitoring and shared analytics to detect stealth attacks.

“Cisco continues the relentless evolution of our security architecture from the network to the endpoint to the cloud,” said Scott Harrell, head of Cisco’s security business  “Today’s AMP for Endpoints launch is a critical milestone. Customers now have the opportunity to simplify their endpoint security strategy, securing mobile users, servers and desktops by leveraging Cisco’s threat-centric security architecture.”

Cisco has also extended its ONE software into the advanced security arena for data centres, WAN, and access domains. To this end there are now three new advanced security software suites including Threat Defense for Data Centre; Threat Defence for WAN and Edge; and finally Policy and Threat Defence for Access.

These software suites are customised with key security products and services for each domain. For example the data centre suit includes advanced malware protection, next-generation intrusion prevention, URL filtering and virtualised firewall and services.

Cisco is also now offering Cisco One via subscription model, alongside its normal perpetual licensing model.

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