Both VMware and Cisco share a long-held vision of the value of virtualisation to the IT organisation. Both companies advocate virtualisation as a long-term strategy to improve return on assets, reduce operational complexity, and increase infrastructure agility.

VMware is the industry leader in infrastructure virtualisation software and the virtualisation of industry standard servers as a means to reduce costs, increase adaptability, and maximize availability of application infrastructure.

Virtualisation has been a central tenet of the Cisco technology vision since the Cisco Catalyst® 5000 introduced VLAN technology in the mid 1990s. Virtualisation continues to be a central concept in the Cisco vision for the next-generation data center. The Cisco Data Center Network Architecture (DCNA) currently delivers fabric-based virtualisation of network services, storage, security, and Layer 4 to 7 processing of application traffic.

Within the data center, Cisco and VMware solutions complement each other, allowing customers to create and implement a virtualisation strategy that supports their business objectives. Both Cisco and VMware continue to explore additional collaboration opportunities to deliver increased value for the customer.