Cisco to Acquire WHIPTAIL to Further Accelerate Data Center Performance

In fact, with data loads increasing exponentially because of the immutable trends of virtualization, mobilization, cloud computing, big data and the explosion in rich media applications, there is now a premium, some might even call it table stakes to be a player, for major players to fill out their portfolios to make sure they have all the acceleration touch points that enable higher performance covered. 

Why is this important to Cisco? To put it simply, as part of its over-arching Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) the ability to enhance applications performance by integrating scalable solid state memory into the UCS's fabric computing architecture is believed to provide real differentiated value going forward. This is why an acquisition and not a strategic partnership was the path taken by Cisco.

As Cisco explains it, as new applications such as virtual desktops and data analytics increase the stress on traditional storage arrays, performance is compromised. The company notes, “Bridging the gap between increased application performance demand from servers and what traditional storage systems can deliver, requires that solid state memory systems be brought closer to the application.” WHIPTAIL will enable Cisco to provide the bridge as UCS architecture evolves by integrating data acceleration capability into the compute layer.

This will be accomplished by integrating WHIPTAIL's memory systems with UCS at a hardware and manageability level. Cisco believes this will simplify customers' data center environments by delivering the required performance in a fraction of the data center floor space with unified management for provisioning and administration.