The Dallas Morning News reported today that Cisco may invest more than $500 million over the next 10 years in its new data center located in Allen, Texas.
According to Jennifer Grimm - director of business development for the Allen Economic Development Corp:
"It's huge for us, we've been working for several years to market sites up there for data centers. We couldn't have won any better than this. They really wanted to be in Allen and liked the things that we had to offer. This project has been under way for almost two years, and we are excited to see it become a reality."
City of Allen, Texas - Home of the New Cisco Data Center
Source: AEDC
Aerial View of the New Cisco Data Center (Site 1) - Allen, Texas
Source: AEDC
Aerial View of the Substation Located Adjacent to Cisco's New Data Center Site - Allen, Texas
Source: AEDC
The initial investment for Cisco's new 160,000 square foot data center will be $184 million. However, the facility will be expandable to 350,000 square feet and is expected to involve a $500 million investment by Cisco over the next 10 years, creating 100 to 125 full-time and contract jobs. Construction will likely start the first part of 2010 and last 18 to 24 months.
Site Plan of Cisco's New Data Center - Allen, Texas
Source: City of Allen, Texas
What's your take, does Cisco's video based content delivery network (CDN) figure into this new data center announcement?
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Will they use the WAAS Product, I think not.
Brad,
I was heard from a friend at Cisco that they do not use the Cisco WAAS worldwide in their network. Now why would this be Brad? Building this new data center you would think they would be using their own products that they say is so good in every office, but I heard that's not the case.
Is there anyway you can find out Brad if Cisco uses the WAAS in every office worldwide? It would be really funny if this group of engineers were correct and Cisco does not even use its own product internally that is sells to customers.
I guess that would say they do not trust their own product and don't drink their own kool-aid as other have put it. But I guess we can say at least Chambers did not build this data center in India like everything else. Tell there I hear Juniper has a new 10gb switch they can use, lol.
Milton S. Hershey
Hi Mikey,
I know for a fact that Milton S. Hershey gave visitors to his office, gift boxes of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups while my grandfather, H.B. Reese, was his competitor (though my grandfather was also a customer because he purchased his chocolate "on credit" in 10 pound blocks from Hershey, so did Frank Mars).
So it would not surprise me that Cisco would use competitor products within its own internal network for various reasons.
Sincerely,
Brad Reese
BradReese.Com Cisco Refurbished
Hey Mikey, that's some
Hey Mikey, that's some thought process you've got going there. You hear a rumor that the WAAS module is not used in Cisco's WAN and conclude that Cisco does not trust their own products. I wonder if there could be any other explanation, if the rumor was even true... like maybe Cisco uses higher speed WAN circuits and routers what you are used to dealing with. The WAAS module goes into the ISR line; Cisco certainly has access to higher-end models than the ISR and deploys fairly high-speed circuits to connect up the hundreds of sites that they have on Telepresence.
Lets think about this now.
You sound like a Cisco employee, why use your product to reduce bandwidth and speed things up? Just use more bandwidth, kind of funny you don't tell that to your customers. If they would listen to you Cisco would not sell a WAAS. But I know why Cisco does not use the WAAS product in their network, they are scarred to death that and when it would fail.
It has nothing to do about bandwidth, they are scared. Why not install it, use it, speed things up, reduce telco cost and show your customers you use your own products? It is because things would slow down and people would yell, plus the IT department said no way you are putting that in our network.
No Cisco Reply
What has me as to why none of these directors or managers have come out with a reply as to why Cisco does not use the WAAS product in the network.
If this is true that they do not, it would be a huge blow to Cisco against others in this area. They will be seen as liars about using products they sell in its own network.
I wonder is Doug C. has all of the data center moving last night to try to get it in some how and then send some results to him.
You sound like a Cisco
You sound like a Cisco competitor or a customer of a competitor. I'm all for thinking about this -- why don't we try it together. The WAAS modules go into ISRs (did you miss that part?); if you do not use ISRs, then you cannot use WAAS modules. I do not know if Cisco uses ISRs in their internal WAN, but given the bandwith requirements for Telepresence, I doubt it.
When you say "it has nothing to do about bandwidth", you are really saying "I don't know what I'm talking about". If you had a 10GE pipe between two sites, would you advocate putting a WAN accelerator on that link? If your answer is yes, then I suggest you resign your position and seek employment in a different field. Whether or not you employ a WAN accelerator has everything to do with available bandwidth and the applications that run on top of the WAN link. Real-time UDP-based applications (like Telepresence) do not benefit from WAN accelerators.
yes, let's think about it.
This an unsubstantiated rumour based on the limited knowledge of one engineer. Cisco has thousands of products, not all of which are required in their network. It doesn't mean that they're scared, it means that the product was not required.
I used to work at Cisco in the UK and I know that, in Europe at least, there was a big focus on using all relevant technologies internally.
"Why not install it, use it, speed things up, reduce telco cost and show your customers you use your own products?" You could say the same thing about any one of the hundreds of products Cisco doesn't use. By the same argument, if Cisco uses one version of IOS, then they're scared of all the others.
"It is because things would slow down and people would yell, plus the IT department said no way you are putting that in our network." Rubbish. Absolute bollocks.
I agree with matey-boy above, if this is the way you think then perhaps you're in the wrong industry. Maybe you should open a retail outlet for street meat. Or ice cream.
Missed this gem from Mikey
"Building this new data center you would think they would be using their own products that they say is so good in every office"
A data centre is not an office. The links into Cisco data centres are, for the most part, bigger than their office links. If this is going to be a video CDN hub, then I'm not sure there's a huge requirement for low-end, TCP-based, WAN Acceleration technology.
The WAE appliances only support up to 1GE links. The acceleration modules only fit in the ISR range. Virgin MegaStores deployed them to kiosks, not offices and certainly not data centres. (http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns340/ns517/ns477/net_customer_profile0900aecd80410409.pdf)
"Tell there I hear Juniper has a new 10gb switch they can use, lol" haha, good one! you're right, who'd use a Juniper box when a Cisco one does a better job.
I know, I know
They will be using Riverbed, lol.
Comm-on it is 4:41 something in the morning, thats funny.
its realy good...
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