Roundup: Cisco, Oracle, Interxion

Here’s a roundup of this week’s headlines from the data center and hosting industry:

Cisco to acquire LineSider. Cisco (CSCO) announced its intent to acquire privately held LineSider Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of network management software that helps customers create and deploy cloud computing infrastructure. "Cloud computing represents a significant opportunity for Cisco customers to create more effective business models and increase the operating efficiency of the network," said Jesper Andersen, senior vice president of Cisco's Network Management Technology Group (NMTG).  "With the acquisition of LineSider, Cisco will gain a key component to helping customers make this shift.  LineSider's advanced network management software integrates both physical and virtual network services with a policy-based approach and makes networks more flexible and responsive to change."  As a part of the deal, Cisco will also obtain a team of industry-leading engineers.  Financial terms were not disclosed and the deal is expected to be complete in Cisco's second quarter 2011.

Oracle refreshes the SPARC product line.  Oracle (ORCL) announced a complete refresh of SPARC enterprise server product line and unveiled the SPARC Solaris-based Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud T3-1B.  The T3-1B is an integrated hardware and software system tested and tuned by Oracle to run Java and non-Java applications with extreme performance.  The SPARC refresh addressed the T-Series and M-Series product lines, delivering on their five year roadmap for SPARC Solaris-based systems.  The SPARC T3 family of high-performance systems is available with an industry first 16-core SPARC T3 server processor.  Oracle and Fujitsu announced the enhanced SPARC Enterprise M-Series server product line iwth a new processor SPARC64 VII+.  “Oracle is accelerating delivery on our five-year SPARC roadmap with continued product innovation,” said John Fowler, Oracle Executive Vice President, Systems, Oracle. “With the enhanced SPARC Enterprise product family, coupled with Solaris 11 Express and the new SPARC Solaris-based Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud T3-1B, Oracle is again raising the bar to deliver the industry’s most reliable, scalable and secure solutions for mission-critical computing.”

Interxion and Otkritie partner. Interxion announced that Otkritie, one of the largest financial groups in Russia, has elected to locate its servers in Interxion's City of London data center.  Adding Otkritie gives Russian market access to the buy and sell-side companies within Interxion's financial hub.  “Locating our servers within Interxion’s City of London Financial Hub makes perfect sense for us," said Tim Bevan, Senior Sales, DMA at Otkritie. We benefit from ultra-secure and ultra-reliable data centre services, as well as a wide choice of connectivity through a breadth of network providers. This offers both Otkritie and our DMA (Direct Market Access) clients a choice of low-latency connectivity to the markets in London, Moscow and other emerging high-frequency trading hubs, including Stockholm and Zurich,."