Cisco exec shares virtualization vision

Do you plan to take virtualization above the network to the server or application level?

You see a component of that already in Unified I/O. So the I/O component, really virtualizing that over a single connection to the network, is very fundamental. And then being able to split that out further in the networking device. That's getting ingrained in the architecture of the data center, very much touching the connection to the server itself.

Do you plan to invest in another hypervisor vendor, similar to your relationship with VMware?

No announcements to date. We're continuing to work with all the hypervisor vendors. We are interested in virtualized data centers and to the extent that hypervisor and virtualized servers exist in the data center we think that's a very powerful construct for customers and one that's going to take network support.

Does Cisco plan to hypervisor-enable its operating systems?

That same trend of virtualization on the server actually applies to different levels in our operating systems even today. You can take the Nexus 7000 and operate it as separate virtual routers. We will definitely be exploiting modern software technology to take advantage of multiprocessors embedded in our products so that we can increase performance of either scaling control plane protocols or running different services on different processors. Some components of that exist today. We don't generally talk about the implementation details inside the box.

Does Cisco have a strategy to virtualize the desktop?

I would broaden that from the desktop of a computer to virtualization of information either on an application on a desktop PC or a mobile phone or mobile device. Part of our data center strategy is supporting a model that will virtualize information on any piece of glass.

What do you see as the biggest challenges in the virtualized environment?

Virtualization requires a degree of cross-discipline approach to the design of the infrastructure that we've never seen before. The security folks have to work tightly with the application folks and the network infrastructure people. And we see that in many different areas: people are starting to talk about spot cooling data centers based on application load. This requires people building out the air conditioning to understand application load. So you're going to see more cross-discipline conversations that have to happen in these virtualized data centers than we've ever seen before.

Does a virtualized environment break the data center security model?

It doesn't have to but it makes it more complicated. The power of virtualization in terms of reducing physical footprint, leveraging assets most effectively and reducing power consumption trump for a lot of enterprises the extra degree of complexity. Obviously, companies like Cisco have to help reduce that complexity.