Australan NBN Co Selects Vblock

Cisco Systems, Inc. announced that NBN Co Limited, the company set up by the Federal Government to design, build and operate Australia’s wholesale-only, high-speed broadband network, has selected Cisco to lead the implementation of its data centre infrastructure. The solution will be deployed by Cisco and will be built upon Vblock technology from the Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) coalition, a collaboration of Cisco, EMC Corporation and VMware, for its next generation data centre.

Led by Cisco, the selected Vblock technology supports NBN Co’s requirements for a data centre with the flexibility to scale to meet aggressive growth requirements and the business agility to rapidly roll out new services. The unique capability of the Cisco Unified Computing System to unite compute, network and virtualisation resources into a single cohesive system also helps NBN Co to substantially improve the energy efficiency of its data centre.

NBN Co Head of Corporate Services Mr. Kevin Brown said: "We are pleased to have acquired Cisco as our strategic supplier of our data centre, a foundation that will underpin the operation of the NBN."

The selected Vblock infrastructure package is a integrated information technology offering that combines virtualisation, networking, computing, storage, security and management technologies with the expertise of Cisco, EMC and VMware. As a result of this simpler, pre-integrated and pre-tested IT infrastructure, NBN Co staff can focus on innovation, virtualising applications and delivering services instead of configuring and tuning separate components. By combining the Cisco Unified Computing System with EMC VMAX, Avamar, and Data Domain, VMware vSphere and BMC software, the management and automation of dynamic, virtual IT environments will also provide NBN Co with business agility.

Les Williamson, Vice President of Cisco Australia and New Zealand, said: "Cisco has a long heritage of working in global and Australian data centres and understands the network is at the heart of the data centre’s ability to rapidly provide information anytime, anywhere, to anybody. We are very pleased that NBN Co selected technology from Cisco, EMC and VMware to build the data centre that will support the deployment of faster broadband networks crucial to improving Australian’s quality of life and boosting economic growth."

David Webster, President of EMC Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia, said: "The National Broadband Network is the most significant Australian IT infrastructure project in over a decade. For EMC’s Vblock Infrastructure to be selected as a foundational component of the NBN, along with our partners Cisco and VMware, tells of the strategic significance of the VCE coalition for providing mission critical IT infrastructures for the public sector and enterprise organisations. This Vblock infrastructure will benefit all Australians for years to come."

Paul Harapin, Managing Director of VMware Australia, said: "As Australia shifts toward new communication models with the introduction of the NBN, virtualisation technology will play a significant role transitioning businesses to a new phase of business and IT operation. VMware is pleased to be a key player in providing the technology that will see the NBN Co’s next generation data centre operating with the flexibility and scale required to transition Australia toward its new digital future."