Cisco teams up with Citrix for virtualisation

Cisco and Citrix have teamed up for a new desktop virtualisation offering that combines the Citrix XenDesktop platform with Cisco's Unified Computing System for server, networking and storage virtualisation.

The companies promise a system that can deliver virtualised desktop systems more efficiently and in less time.

The combination of XenDesktop and Cisco Unified computing will allow customers to improve the density of virtualised desktop systems on a server by some 60 per cent, the firms claimed.

"The combined solution we're announcing today represents a significant milestone in delivering on our vision to simplify desktop computing for enterprises around the world," said Gordon Payne, desktop division senior vice president and general manager at Citrix.

"Industry leading technology from Citrix and Cisco will help further drive down the costs of desktop virtualisation, and speed deployments through a high-performance and scalable architecture."

The system offers support for the Citrix XenServer and VMware Sphere virtualisation platforms, and will add support for Microsoft's Hyper-V in a future update.