Cisco continues to work closely on technologies and solutions around the UCS compute family so we can bring maximum value to you and your Microsoft oriented datacenters. The UCS family is well suited for Windows Server, Hyper-V and VMware based private clouds, and support for the key workloads of SQL Server, Exchange, and SharePoint. Recently I was inventorying our Microsoft oriented UCS case studies and came up with several that showcased UCS's architectural strengths as well as good business value returns.

From a UCS point of view we constantly see from our clients various CapEx and OpEx improvements. UCS's design and its' fabric orientation provide infrastructure benefits. Our open model based management solutions such as UCS Manager and UCS Director drive tremendous I.T. management savings and productivity improvements. Designed for virtualization from the very beginning, UCS is THE platform for virtualizing key workloads with great performance and density. Our Cisco Validated Designs provide application architectures that afford confidence to our partners in their rollout of solutions. Let's drill down a bit and look at a few case studies:

Cisco UCS is fast. We've won a ton -well 81 at last count -world record benchmarks. The Server Provider cBeyond recognized savings at the port level when they rolled out a new UCS oriented and Windows Server 2012 datacenter. The Arab Investment Bank untangled their prior cabling into a 70% savings when they migrated to UCS.

Management is on point and key, especially in today's movement to the cloud with self-service capabilities and Lines of Businesses often driving I.T. spend. The National FFA leveraged UCS Director to lower time spent managing their servers in their datacenter. Service Provider nGenx was able to repurpose servers by a factor of 3.

Virtualization is a great differentiator for UCS. Some example here... Fabick Cat moved to a 94% virtualized to non-virtualized ration for their applications and services after moving to UCS. The Arab Investment Bank saved money via VDI on UCS, a 90% savings for them.

Cisco Validated Designs such as FlexPod for Microsoft Private Cloud and VSPEX for Microsoft Hyper-V afford efficiencies for our partners and the client they support. Here we see again Fabrick Cat benefiting with cost savings -this time with a VSPEX rollout while Steris saw similar results with FlexPod.

Please check out the details of each of these case studies in the library below. Also, please visit www.cisco.com/go/microsoft to keep current on our technologies and solutions for your Microsoft oriented datacenter.