Cool looking hardware, right?

Cisco made a splash yesterday with its Nexus 7000 switching platform for data centers. Besides a new OS, NX-OS, and baking in all sorts of storage- and security-related goodness, Nexus 7000 also has the potential to lower energy costs while only setting you back $75K (starting price) when it ships later this year.

This article in Forbes explains...

Consolidating those three networking systems into one Ethernet network translates into a quick 5% to 8% energy saving in a company's data centers, according to a Bernstein Research report on Cisco's new switch. But the Nexus 7000 really gets interesting, says Yankee Group analyst Zeus Kerravala, when it's combined with another revolutionary IT innovation: virtualization.

Today, virtualization allows servers to be converted to software "images" that can be consolidated and hosted on a single physical server, increasing a data center's efficiency by about 25%, Kerravala estimates. But in combination with a switch like the Nexus, virtualization could mean cooperation between multipurpose servers across cities and time zones.

You can read the rest here. The author even managed to work in a Star Trek reference.

Truly, a geek at heart.