Cisco, Ingram Micro Launch Unified Computing Center

Cisco Systems, Inc. and Ingram Micro Asia Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ingram Micro Inc., announced the launch of Asia’s first Cisco Center for Unified Computing in Singapore.

The center will provide Ingram Micro’s customers and channel partners with a next-generation data center platform that will accelerate the delivery of new services simply, reliably and with a high degree of security through end-to-end provisioning and migration support. It will also feature technology from APC, CA, Hitachi Data Systems, Intel, Microsoft, Oracle, Symantec, VMware and other partners.

As the pioneering solution center in the region, the Cisco Center for Unified Computing will be a test bed for Cisco partners to simulate real-life scenarios in a heterogeneous hardware and software application environment. The center provides a risk-free environment for partners to share and address their customers’ data center requirements and challenges. Cisco’s investment with Ingram Micro includes training and additional staff to manage the solution center.

As the first unified computing solution center in Asia, the Cisco Center for Unified Computing, located at the Ingram Micro offices in Singapore’s Kallang district, will be a landmark implementation and the precursor to an expansion of the concept into the rest of Asia.

Ingram Micro is also the first Cisco distributor in the region to deploy the Cisco Unified Computing System with an ecosystem of partners.

In addition to the Cisco Unified Computing System, the center has a full suite of other data center solutions, including Hitachi Data Systems and APC power and racking solutions. Applications from Microsoft, Symantec and VMware are also configured to allow realistic simulations of a data center’s environment.

Data center virtualization has created a market transition in which information technology professionals are trying to reduce costs and increase flexibility. During this transition, the Cisco Center for Unified Computing will help Ingram Micro’s customers and partners resolve their data center challenges by uniting network, computing and virtualization resources.

The Cisco Unified Computing System streamlines data center resources to reduce the 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.

Globally, more than 900 customers have already adopted the Cisco Unified Computing System.

The Cisco Unified Computing System is part of the company’s Data Center 3.0 solutions, which help data centers transition to 10 Gigabit architectures, virtualization, unified fabric solutions, cloud computing and green operations.

Cisco also recently announced planned updates to its Cisco Unified Computing System platform, as well as expansions in its rapidly growing ecosystem of technology partners and developers.

Irving Tan, managing director for Singapore and Brunei at Cisco, said:" With business requirements increasing and the IT budget staying where it is, organizations are looking for a solution that allows them to quickly scale and reallocate resources when they are not in use. The Cisco Center for Unified Computing will be a great showcase of solutions with our partners, and it reaffirms our relationship with Ingram Micro and validates the demand for a platform that unites computation, the network, and virtualization."

Andre Smit, managing director for Cisco data center sales in Asia, said:" The data center is the digital nervous system of any business, and the data center becoming more virtualized as a result of market transitions gives us the opportunity to have a more agile but also adaptable environment to produce top-line growth as well as contain costs. We used this opportunity to develop a platform that will optimize virtualization and reduce the complexity of managing the data center. The launch of the Cisco Center for Unified Computing at Ingram Micro is a realization of that market opportunity, and we are excited to offer these solutions first to customers and partners in Singapore."

Francis Choo, executive managing director, Ingram Micro, said:" We are excited to launch the region’s first Cisco Center for Unified Computing here at Ingram Micro Singapore. We believe that a strong ecosystem of partners is critical to the delivery and support of data center architectures and this collaboration with Cisco will improve how IT responds to the rapidly changing business demands. This next-generation data center platform accelerates the delivery of new services simply, reliably, and securely through end-to-end provisioning and migration support and here at Ingram Micro, we look forward to work with Cisco and other industry leaders to provide a complete, standards-based solution."

Benedict Soh, Business vice president Singapore, APC by Schneider Electric, said:" APC and Cisco are long standing partners in the development of innovative solutions and best practices in the deployment of data centres and networks. We are delighted that Cisco has selected APC solutions for the latest Cisco Center for Unified Computing in Singapore. We are glad to join Cisco in the initiative to offer truly scalable data centres offering Pay as you grow approach, reduced complexity and limiting Opex linked to energy costs and operations. Looking ahead, we see many great business opportunities for us to jointly deliver next generation data centre solutions to our customers in this region."

Ravi Rajendran, vice president and general manager for ASEAN, Hitachi Data Systems, said:" At Hitachi Data Systems, we believe that data drives our world and information is the new currency. The trend towards unified computing is unmistakeable, with servers, storage and networking systems evolving to fit more efficiently into the data center of the future. We are pleased that Cisco and Ingram Micro have taken this trend to a new level by opening the first Cisco Center for Unified Computing in Singapore. We hope that it will help to deliver customers and channel partners greater efficiency, agility and investment protection."

Patrick Liew, Singapore country manager, Intel Technology Asia, said:" The Intel Xeon processor family provides the intelligent performance, smart energy efficiency, and 24/7 dependability for advanced reliability even with the most demanding applications. Having a unified computing solution centre powered by the Intel Xeon processors provides local and even regional customers a test bed to explore how they can leverage virtualization technology to dynamically deploy applications and also try out new business intelligence software that can optimize their competitive edge without any IT downtime."

Whye Mun Sun, director SMS&P, Microsoft Singapore, said:" Today, enterprises want IT efficiency in three ways – reduced costs, increased productivity and innovation. Microsoft is pleased to be part of the Unified Computing alliance as it enables companies to realize their business potential through the magic of our software and our cloud computing platforms."

Tan Yuh Woei, country manager, Singapore, Symantec, said:" As enterprises embrace the next-generation data center platform, it is imperative that they are empowered to protect, store and recover information in an efficient and reliable manner through a single, unified platform. With data growing at a phenomenal rate of 50 percent, enterprises today are increasingly challenged to keep pace with data growth with shrinking IT budgets. Symantec is delighted to be part of this landmark initiative to help enterprises address these challenges with our leading data protection solutions by integrating deduplication everywhere to offer complete data and machine protection, even in a virtualized environment."

Ed Lenta, general manager, VMware Southeast Asia, said:" The Cisco Centre for Unified Computing will bring VMware’s cloud computing technologies together with other industry solutions to help enterprises in Asia test bed new data centre models that unify virtualised network, server and storage resources under the UCS framework. This will fundamentally change the way data centres are built and redefine the benchmarks for business agility and productivity."