Cisco refreshes green data center act with new Nexus switch

Cisco is latching onto the green data center consolidation movement with a new line of switches called the Nexus 5000 series. The company also is making it more attractive for its VARs and resellers to create a data center practice through new incentives that will kick in come August.

Nexus 5000, developed by Nuova Systems, which Cisco just bought out completely this week, is a 10 Gigabit Ethernet switch that is designed to consolidate the traffic associated with LANs, Fibre Channel and iSCSI-based storage area networks, AND server clusters onto a unified Ethernet fabric. So, fewer cables, fewer adapters and lower power consumption. The starting configuration for the product, a 40-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet switch, is priced at $36,000. It’s supposed to ship in May.

As it is wont to do when it wants to encourage partners to get into a technology area, Cisco has added data center products to its Value Incentive Program. Simply put: This means VARs can earn a back-end rebate for reaching certain technical commitments and revenue goals.