Got Servers? Cisco does! Oh by the way they’ll rock your SQL Server 2008 R2 configuration, too
Hey, what’s this? Cisco makes servers? Yes, it is true. Cisco is in the Intel based server business and has been designing, manufacturing, and shipping our own server platform under the Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) brand for about two years now. You are quite familiar with the ongoing innovation in the SQL Server family with new capabilities such as PowerPivot and self-service BI recently coming to market. Well the theme of innovation holds true for the Cisco UCS family, too. Cisco’s innovation in server design affords you a high performing platform for your SQL Server 2008 R2 data warehouse and OLTP environments. Microsoft reached out to Cisco several months ago and invited us into the SQL Server 2008 R2 Fast Track Data Warehouse program. We’re quite pleased to be here and we look forward to offering our joint customers high performing, scalable, and manageable SQL solutions leveraging native Microsoft technologies such as PowerShell, Hyper-V, and the System Center management family. We’ve spent the past months working closely with Microsoft Engineers and also with our storage partners EMC and NetApp building up a couple of rock solid SQL Server 2008 R2 based reference configurations. The result is free technical reference configurations from Cisco for data warehouse environments and OLTP environments. For your SQL environments take a look leveraging key Cisco UCS features such as our powerful extended memory capabilities which drives high performance; our ability to deliver on ‘stateless computing’ which eases provisioning, configuration, and deployment pains; and tapped our powerful UCS Manager platform to work openly with Microsoft’s PowerShell technology and System Center. OK, hope you have found this to be helpful and educational. If you happen to be at Microsoft Tech Ed North America in Atlanta this week, please feel free to stop by booth #1614 and check us out or simply visit www.cisco.com/go/microsoft. Thanks! Guest Blog Post From: Rex Backman, Global Marketing Manager for Microsoft Solutions, Cisco, rbackman@cisco.com
