Combing the Cisco Unified Computing System, Cisco Nexus switches and VmWare virtualisation software allows PlanNet21 to provide a complete Data Centre solution that streamlines data center resources to reduce total cost of ownership, scales service delivery to increase business agility, and radically reduces the number of devices requiring setup, management, power, cooling, and cabling.

Explosive growth in compute capacity in many of today's data centers is stretching the limits of power, space, capital, and operational control for many IT organizations. Large numbers of powerful servers, configured for peak capacity but operating at a fraction of their potential, have generated an 'infrastructure sprawl' that is limiting IT's responsiveness, sapping budgets, and exposing businesses to greater risk.

Server consolidation solutions and services can help you maximize the value of your server deployment by consolidating servers using server virtualization technologies such as VMware ESX, Microsoft Hyper-V, or Xen. The capability to consolidate multiple physical machines typically running with low utilization into virtual machines that can run on a much smaller number of physical servers has significant cost benefits for the customer. The virtual machine becomes the default application platform, with 60 to 80 percent of x86 applications running in a virtualized environment. This increase in virtual machine density encourages a transition to 10 Gigabit Ethernet as the default mechanism for attaching servers since multiple virtual machines on a single server can quickly overwhelm a single Gigabit Ethernet link, and multiple Gigabit Ethernet links cease to be cost effective after a certain point. Customers can also deploy the Cisco Nexus 1000V Switch if they are running VMware's ESX hypervisor. This capability gives customers operational consistency down to the individual virtual machine as well as policy portability, so network and security policy follows virtual machines are they move around the data center. The Cisco Nexus 1000V can be deployed wherever VMware ESX is currently running.

The typical data center environment supports two to three parallel networks: one for data, one for storage, and possibly one for server clustering. In addition, servers often have dedicated interfaces for management, backup, or virtual machine live migration. Supporting these interfaces imposes significant costs related to interfaces, cabling, rack space, upstream switches, and power and cooling. Unified fabric consolidates these different types of traffic onto a single, general-purpose, high-performance, highly available network that greatly simplifies the network infrastructure and reduces costs. This Unified fabric is provided by Cisco Nexus 5000 and 7000 switches that utilize 10Gb interfaces to provide LAN, Backup and Management Ethernet interfaces alone with Fiber Channel Storage Interfaces. Now instead of each server supporting 6 or 7 different interface types, one primary 10Gb and one redundant 10Gb interface per server is all that is required to provide all necessary connectivity. Server adapters from QLogic and Emulex support the Data Centre Ethernet required for Unified Fabric and are available today.

To support data centre virtualisation Cisco have introduced the Cisco Unified Computing System. This consists of B series blade servers and C series rack mount servers that were specifically designed with the latest Intel processors and an expanded memory footprint, to support virtualisation. Each blade server chassis can support up to two UCS 2100 series fabric extenders, each with four 10Gb FCoE capable ports, thus providing up to 80 Gbps I/O per chassis with full Unified Fabric support. The Cisco UCS 6100 Series Fabric Interconnects manages the Unified Computing System. LAN and SAN traffic are consolidated onto a single unified fabric, saving the capital and operating expenses associated with multiple parallel networks, different types of adapter cards, switching infrastructure, and cabling within racks. Fibre Channel expansion modules in the interconnect support direct connections from the Cisco Unified Computing System to existing native Fibre Channel SANs. Its capability to connect FCoE to native Fibre Channel protects existing storage system investments while dramatically simplifying in-rack cabling.