Cisco Unveils Desktop Virtualisation System

Cisco on Monday announced a new desktop virtualisation system along with new products including ‘zero-client’ clients and video conferencing endpoints. The new system, called Cisco Virtualisation Experience Infrastructure (VXI), works with both Cisco systems and third-party devices, the company said.

VXI can help companies integrate desktop virtualisation with the rest of their IT infrastructure, making it easier and less costly to maintain, Cisco said.

VXI is designed to bring together Cisco’s collaboration, data centre virtualisation and borderless networking architectures with desktop virtualisation software and devices, according to Cisco.

VXI compatibility

Cisco said a number of its existing and upcoming products will work with VXI, including the upcoming Cius tablet (left), the Quad platform, ACE load balancing and application delivery, Cisco’s wide-area application acceleration software, the company’s Adaptive Security Appliances and its AnyConnect VPN client.

The Cius tablet, due in March, will be able to run VMware View, Citrix Receiver and Wyse Pocket Cloud virtualisation software, Cisco said.

Cisco said its Unified Computing System, Nexus and Catalyst lines of data centre switches, MDS multilayer SAN switches and Integrated Services Routers will also work with VXI.

Third party devices from companies such as DevonIT and IGEL have also been validated to work with VXI, Cisco said.

Cisco said it collaborated with Wyse on hardware performance to ensure applications are highly responsive when running over VXI.

The virtualisation system uses Citrix XenDesktop 5 and VMware View 4.5 desktop virtualisation products and supports management and security applications, storage systems from EMC and NetApp and many Microsoft applications.

Cisco said VXI is designed to cut costs by allowing desktop virtualisation systems to integrate with companies’ exisiting IT infrastructure.

“Rather than deploy a parallel IT infrastructure to support virtual desktops, Cisco VXI helps businesses take advantage of current investments by unifying data centre, collaboration and networking architectures into one system,” said Manny Rivelo, senior vice president of systems and architectures at Cisco, in a statement.

New devices

Cisco also introduced two zero-client devices, both of which will support VMware View 4.5 and Citrix XenDesktop. The devices will be available in March 2011, priced below $500 (£311), including a USB keyboard, mouse and client licence.

The VXC 2200 is less than 5 inches high, while the VXC 2100 is slightly smaller and can be attached to a Cisco IP phone. Both can be powered via power-over-Ethernet and are designed to enable a desktop virtualisation experience with the minimum of client hardware.

Cisco said its web conferencing software will soon be extended to mobile users through client software for the Cius tablet and, beginning in December, Apple’s iPad.

Cisco also announced two videoconferencing endpoints, the TelePresence EX60 and the TelePresence System 500 32-inch.

The EX60 includes a 21-inch high-definition screen and can also serve as a desktop computer monitor. It will be available by the end of 2010 for $6,900.

The CTS 500-32 has a 32-inch screen and can be wall-mounted or placed on a pedestal. It will cost $23,900 and will be available by the end of this year.