Why chose VC over Cisco 3120

[pharandst]

Hi, I am currently doing a study for our Blade server connectivity and have been asked to compare VC and the Cisco 3120 not the 3020. What are the benefits of using the VC? I've heard alot from both sides and I am looking for the administrators perspective. I know what both devices can do from the networking side and am leaning towards the 3120 because of it's roadmap with VMware. Anything would help. Thanks, Stephane

[James Henry_5]

The key benefits from an administration perspective is the ability to rack and wire a complete enclosure on Day 1 and you then have a ready to go dynamic IT environment for up to 16 servers for every enclosure that you have installed. With Virtual Connect you can pre-define connectivity profiles for every slot for both LAN and SAN - this enables LAN and SAN admins to pre-configure the core LAN and SAN switches before he servers are even present. It frees up Server admins to be able to add, change and remove servers on the fly without impacting the core LAN or SAN dramatically reducing and even eliminating many change management processes. The ability to move connection profiles between slots in an enclosure and even between slots across enclosures (via Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager (VCEM)) is a very powerful feature enabling true lights out management of your server environment as it facilitates automatic deployment, recovery and failover. Virtual Connect is an industry standard solution for not just the LAN but the SAN as well with a common management interface which simplifies edge connectivity to the core LAN and SAN. Finally Virtual Connect is a requirement if you are considering implementing HP Insight Dynamics - VSE -----> http://www.hp.com/go/insightdynamics I hope this helps a little bit. Regards James