Cisco enters rack-mount server market

Cisco is to move into the rack-mount server business as part of its drive towards what it calls 'unified computing'.

Unified computing, says the company, involves combining network, compute and virtualisation resources into a single system. Cisco's Unified Computing System (UCS) C-series rack-mount servers, announced on Wednesday, add a new element to a portfolio that already includes UCS blade servers.

Like the UCS blade servers, which were announced in March, the C-series rack-mount servers are based on Intel's Xeon 5500 Nehalem chips.

Cisco's UCS range is the company's first foray into the server hardware business. The company is better known for its networking products.

Also on Wednesday, Cisco announced two new IT individual certifications for customers and channel partners: Cisco Data Center Unified Computing Design Specialist and the Cisco Data Center Unified Computing Support Specialist.

The certifications cover skills such as storage networking, datacentre networking infrastructure, datacentre application services and virtualisation.

Cisco's UCS C-series rack-mount servers will be available in the fourth quarter of this year.