Microsoft

Microsoft and Cisco hug

This week there was some interesting announcements from Microsoft and Cisco that shows how UCS is a great platform for their enterprise product set, including Sharepoint, Exchange and Hyper-V.  What’s the marketing, and what’s the reality?

First of all, the marketing. Microsoft Partners with Cisco on Unified Computing System has a video of Bill Laing explaining the new partnership which covers Microsoft enterprise operating systems and applications running on UCS.  There is also the ability to monitor multiple UCS Managers from System Center.  You can also read the brochure Microsoft and Cisco Data Center Management.

Second, the reality. There are two meaty tomes for the techies out there.

The incredibly long titled Cisco UCS and Application Delivery for Microsoft Hyper-V Virtualization of Exchange 2010 with NetApp Storage is a new Cisco Validated Design (CVD) with much detail on this solution.

The even longer titled Integrating Microsoft Hyper-V Virtualization of SharePoint 2007 into a Cisco Data Center Infrastructure Using Cisco UCS and Application Services is another new CVD.

For the System Center Management, check out the Quick Start Guide Cisco UCS Manager Management Pack for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager R2.  You can also download the Management Pack directly from Cisco:

Downloading the SCOM MP for UCS

What’s officially supported in terms of Microsoft software on UCS hardware?  If you check out the UCS At Work page (don’t ask me who named that):

Systems Management

Microsoft

Microsoft System Center