IBM combats Cisco's computing move with a switch partnership of its own

As reported by Stacey Higginbotham at GigaOM, IBM is responding to Cisco’s move into computing with a partnership that will put it in datacenter networking, creating a(nother) one stop datacenter shop

IBM logoIBM said today it will resell switches and routers made by Juniper under the IBM brand to compliment Big Blue’s server products aimed at data centers. The move is a direct response to Cisco’s creation of its own brand of servers it calls the Unified Computing System, as well as efforts by Hewlett-Packard to bring that company’s ProCurve networking gear closer to its servers. They’re all part of a larger attempt to keep pushing the boundaries of virtualization beyond hardware and into the network itself.

…Today’s agreement deepens the partnership that Juniper has with IBM, and mimics relationships that Juniper has with certain carrier equipment makers to resell its products without the Juniper brand name. This is the first time, however, that the company has created such a relationship to get its products inside data centers. Juniper entered the data center market in 2005 with its purchase of NetScreen, and has since fought to take market share away from Cisco and HP.  With this deal Juniper has the potential to boost sales, as IBM will get Juniper’s networking gear in front of a lot of new customers.

More in Stacey’s article.

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