From the desk of Cisco's "Virtualization Wow!" Campaign: When is a switch with a server not a virtualization platform?  When it's a server with a switch as a virtualization platform, of course! ;)

I can't help but smile at the announcement that Cisco is bringing to market a blade-based chassis which bundles together Intel's Nehalem-based server processors, the Nexus 5000 switch, and VMware's virtualization and management platform.  From InformationWeek:

Cisco's system, code-named California, likely will be introduced in the
spring, according to the sources. It will meld Cisco's Nexus 5000 switch that converges storage
and data network traffic, blade servers that employ Intel Nehalem
processors, and virtualization management with help from VMware. 

This totally makes sense as virtualization has driven convergence across the compute, network and storage realms and has highlighted the fact that the provisioning, automation, and governance -- up and down the stack -- demands a unified approach for management and support.

For me, this is the natural come-about of what I wrote about in July of 2007 in a blog post titled "Cisco & VMware - The Revolution Will Be...Virtualized?":

This [convergence of network, compute and virtualization, Ed.] is interesting for sure and if you look at the way in which the
demand for flexibility of software combined with generally-available
COTS compute stacks and specific network processing where required, the
notion that Cisco might partner with VMWare or a similar vendor such as
SWSoft looks compelling.  Of course with functionality like KVM in the Linux kernel, there's no reason they have to buy or ally...

Certainly there are already elements of virtualization within
Cisco's routing, switching and security infrastructure, but many might
argue that it requires a refresh in order to meet the requirements of
their customers.  It seems that their CEO does.

When I last blogged about Cisco's partnership with VMware and (what is now called) the Nexus 1000v/VN-Link, I made reference to the fact that I foresaw the extraction of the VM's from the servers and suggested that we would see VM's running in the Nexus switches themselves.  Cisco representatives ultimately put a stake in the sand and said this would never happen in the comments of that blog post.

Now we know what they meant and it makes even more sense.

So the bundling of the Nexus 5000* (with the initiator,) the upcoming protocol for VM-Flow affinity tagging, the integrated/converged compute and storage capabilities, and Intel's SR-IOV/MR-IOV/IOMMU technologies in the Nehalem, all supported by the advances with vNetworking/VN-Link makes this solution a force to be reckoned with.

Other vendors, especially those rooted in servers and networking such as HP and IBM, are likely to introduce their own solutions, but given the tight coupling of the partnership, investment and technology development between Intel, VMware and Cisco, this combo will be hard to beat.