Logicalis slaps UK computing, networking divisions together
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End-to-end appointments Logicalis has appointed new top brass in Europe and lumped together its UK networking and computing divisions in a bid to flog more end-to-end IT.â¦
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As servers and storage start to merge into unified, virtualized systems, Cisco wants to do the same thing with the networks that connect them.On Monday, the company is set to unveil a datacenter networking platform that eventually could take the place of both the Ethernet switches that link servers as well as the Fibre Channel devices that form storage networks. The Nexus series is designed both to meet exploding demands for bandwidth and energy efficiency within data centers and to simplify the jobs of IT administrators. In the process, it could help give Cisco the central role it seeks in IT infrastructure.Cisco is already a leading player in datacenter networks with its&#160;Catalyst series Ethernet switches&#160;and its MDS storage network platform. Now it hopes to transcend those separate systems using a single, unified switching fabric and the emerging Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) standard. The platform it will use, called Nexus, will be a line of routing switches in chassis, rack-mounted and blade form. The first of these, the Nexus 7000 chassis, will be generally available in the second quarter. Prices will start at $75,000, but a typical configuration will cost about $200,000, according to Jayshree Ullal, senior vice president of Cisco&#39;s Data Center, Switching and Security Technology Group.Mark Drake is looking at the Nexus platform for future-proofing as his company, Health Management Associates, centralizes its data resources. The company runs about 60 hospitals, mostly in the Southeastern U.S. Health Management&#39;s current Catalyst switches are probably enough to handle connectivity needs in its data centers for the next two years, but it&#39;s hard to predict storage and processing requirements beyond that as he looks for the next generation, Drake said.&quot;I&#39;m looking at a little over ten years&#39; capacity,&quot; Drake said. The Nexus line is built to go far beyond the scale of the Catalysts, delivering more than 15Tbps. &quot;The capacity to grow is huge,&quot; he said.Another benefit Drake sees in the Nexus, which he has been told about but hasn&#39;t tested, is ease of management. Health Management is already trying to reduce IT staff costs by consolidating data centers from each hospital to a two main locations. Because the new platform combines storage and data switching along with security in a single switch and management interface, it could further simplify running those datacenters, he said.Initially, Cisco sees the Nexus switches at the core of datacenters that still use separate networks for processing and storage. But as FCoE emerges in storage systems, the Nexus could become the single connectivity platform, Ullal said. Its switching fabric is designed to be lossless, unlike a standard Ethernet system, which tolerates dropped packets, said Tom Edsall, senior vice president and CTO of the data center group. The platform also has built-in security features, including wire-speed encryption and authentication capability for each port.At the heart of the platform is a new, virtualized operating system, NX OS. As with server virtualization, NX OS can turn a Nexus switch into multiple logical switches running totally different processes, Ullal said . For example, one logical switch could handle storage and be managed by storage specialists, while the other links servers and is run by a different staff. A third could be a test platform. All would use a single switching fabric and set of redundant power supplies, which provides benefits in performance, economies of scale, and resiliency, she said. This virtualized architecture eventually will trickle down to other Cisco product lines, according to Ullal.Cisco also has automated some aspects of management with the Nexus line, drawing on best practices it learned partly from its customers, Edsall said. The system is designed to monitor and heal itself in many cases.The network&#39;s role in datacenters is growing as computing and storage are combined and shared, according to industry analysts. It&#39;s now the &quot;orchestrator&quot; of the datacenter, Zeus Kerravala of Yankee Group said. Cisco is the only vendor with both the networking and the computing experience to fulfill that role, he believes. But though many managers of datacenters want to see total virtualization of the datacenter, which could boost efficiency, they aren&#39;t yet ready for it.&quot;We&#39;re just entering the very early stages of the virtual datacenter,&quot; Kerravala said. &quot;This is probably at least two years away.&quot;Cisco is best positioned to build the core of datacenters because the network touches everything in it, according to Ullal, Edsall, and other executives.&quot;For Cisco, it&#39;s very critical that this platform be a launching pad to go further up the IT stack,&quot; said IDC&#39;s Cindy Borovick. However, taking control of datacenters won&#39;t be a walk in the park, she cautioned.&quot;Cisco&#39;s in a very strong position, but there are other very large suppliers that recognize how important the datacenter is and are willing to invest the R&amp;D dollars,&quot; Borovick said, citing IBM and Sun Microsystems. To Cisco&#39;s peril, datacenter administrators are more than willing to buy the best of many vendors rather than standardize on one, because they control the &quot;crown jewels&quot; of the enterprise, she said.
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A NEW service aimed at helping fix and install the "circuitry of modern life" was launched yesterday by the owner of Currys and PC World .
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Big Blue's "dinosaur" mainframe business gets a boost with a European customer consolidating SAP applications using Linux.
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Logicalis, Inc., a global provider of high-performance technology  solutions and a Cisco Gold Certified Partner, today announced it was  recognized for Cisco Customer Satisfaction Excellence.
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New BladeSymphony models can be linked into multiprocessor systems or subdivided with virtualization.
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Unisys, the maker of high-end servers, has joined the Red Hat Partner Community, strengthening its ties to the Linux vendor. Unisys, formerly a Windows-only shop, began offering its ES7000 servers
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Data center management software pulls in more pieces of the infrastructure--virtual machines and virtual networks.
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Networking rivals Cisco, 3Com and Enterasys all will release a series of products this month designed to upgrade the infrastructures of businesses of all sizes.
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Networking giant looks to find the old magic by boosting the software smarts of its gear.
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Pair extend shared tech support services to dozens of markets.
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Great and good say Huzzah! The UK now has its own national think tank for open source and open standard policy.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Novell and Honeywell are planning to announce the fruits of a project to link physical and logical access products from the two companies, offering government agencies and large enterprises a way to tie building and network access privileges together seamlessly, according executives from the two companies. The two companies plan to announce software updates and new products that are part of the solution in February, said Beth Thomas product manager for Honeywell's Smart Plus platform. The integration is Federal Information Processing Standards Publication 201 (FIPS 201) compliant and the first such effort by Novell to work with a physical access security vendor. The news comes as companies look for ways to tap into a fast-growing market for integrated physical and logical control systems mandated by Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 (HSPD-12). In February, Honeywell will release a new version of its ProWatch access control system and Smart Plus, a server that provides a Web services interface to Honeywell's physical access products. Novell released an update to its Identity Assurance identity management product in December, adding connectors to facilitate integration with physical access systems. The company will add more workflows and XML signing capabilities to the product in April to assist convergence, said Baber Amin, Novell's senior product manager for security and identity. The technology partnership, which was announced in October, will allow customers using products from both companies to link user credentials from data stores and user provisioning systems such as PeopleSoft  through Novell's Identity Assurance product to Honeywell's ProWatch, so that physical access to buildings and rooms is linked closely with logical access to computers and network resources. Similarly, actions to revoke an employee's physical access in ProWatch can be used to trigger automated network deprovisioning on the logical side, Amin said. The integrated solution provides a partial answer to a vexing problem within enterprises, where physical security and logical security are often managed by different groups with little overall coordination. Many times that means that employees or contractors who are denied building access on their last day of work continue to enjoy remote access to network resources days or even weeks later, Amin said. The link to Access Manager will also allow companies to create more sophisticated access policies and workflow that bind physical and logical attributes. For example, Honeywell door access readers could contribute to NAC (Network Access Control) solutions by signaling to a switch to activate a network port in an office only after an employee has badged into the building or office, Amin said. The companies will initially sell the solutions into large enterprises in regulated industries such as pharmaceuticals, health care, and financial services. Federal government agencies, which are under pressure to comply with HSPD-12, are also a target. One federal agency is already testing a beta version of the integrated products, Thomas said. While integrations between logical and physical access vendors have been possible before, FIPS and HSPD-12 have provided the market for vendors to get behind converged physical and logical access, she said. "It really took the federal government with FIPS to put the emphasis on this," she said. Among other things, companies are uniting physical and IT security teams under one C-level executive -- either a CIO or CSO. That makes converged security sales easier to carry off, Thomas said. But Geoff Turner, a senior analyst at Forrester, said that true convergence is still a long way away. "Convergence is happening, but not as quickly as some people predicted," he said. Among the obstacles to widespread integrations between logical and physical security vendors is confusion about which companies will play a lead role in the converged solution set, he said. "Vendors are kind of casting about and trying to divine their place in a converged world," he said. "They want to know 'How do I do this and not lose my advantage?'" Both Thomas and Amin said that the technology that makes the Novell-Honeywell convergence work could also work with other vendors. However, the two companies are focused on working with each other.
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The company said most cuts would come in its network operations division, where work has become increasingly automated, and in the customer service group.
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By Tony Henshaw  Unisys Corp, a worldwide technology services and solutions provider, surveyed more than 200 IT executives recently, trying to find out how large organizations are restructuring end-user services to meet insatiable end-users, proliferating devices and soaring complexity.
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Unisys describes its broad services strategy, jockeying for a bigger role in the datacenter.
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New South American offices target VoIP Logicalis is investing $1m in an attempt to gain a foothold in emerging South American markets. New offices are being opened by the business IT provider in Lima and Santiago.â¦