Cisco, IBM Expand Global Services Alliance

Cisco and IBM have announced an expansion of their collaboration to provide product maintenance services for mutual enterprise customers in 46 new countries, reports SDA Asia.

The expansion is a result of the success that the two companies have had collaborating within the US. IBM customers who buy Cisco networking technologies will now have a consistent infrastructure to support. "This is a significant evolution in our Global Services Alliance," said Karl Meulema vice president, Cisco services marketing and channels.

The collaboration includes IBM's service-delivery capabilities and Cisco's technical expertise in one integrated support offering.

Virtual Iron has rolled out Version 3.5 of its virtualisation platform, reports SDA India. The new system will support iSCSI (Internet SCSI) storage and single server installation.

In the new release, the company has improved support for cost-effective network storage and simplifies adoption and deployment of virtual infrastructure management, Virtual Iron says. According to analyst firm, Burton Group, virtualisation solutions that reduce complexity while automating virtual machine availability are best positioned for widespread adoption and long-term success.

"With Version 3.5 and the addition of iSCSI support and single server installation, Virtual Iron continues to expand adoption and reduce the cost of enterprise-class virtualisation and management," says NewDatum, a virtualisation consultancy.

Evaluator Group, analyst firm, found that Hitachi Data Systems is outpacing the competition in storage virtualisation, says IT Online.

The report looks at the different areas of storage virtualisation from three leading vendors in the storage industry: Hitachi Data Systems, IBM and EMC. The report highlights Hitachi Data Systems' controller-based virtualisation engine as gaining traction with users in mid-market and larger enterprise environments because of the company's simplified approach towards virtualisation.

Tom Trainer, senior analyst at the Evaluator Group, said simplicity is key to winning over customers. "Businesses are looking for virtualisation solutions that are simple to assimilate into the storage infrastructure, simple to deploy within the enterprise and easy to manage over time."