Cisco adds Microsoft Hyper-V support to Nexus 1000v

As my colleague Beth Pariseau reported last week, Cisco Systems announced today that it is adding support for Microsoft’s Hyper-V hypervisor software to its distributed virtual switch, the Nexus 1000v.

Thus far, when it comes to networking for virtualized infrastructure, much of Cisco’s partnership energy has been devoted to Microsoft’s dominant virtualization competitor VMware, of which Cisco has a small ownership stake. Since the day it was introduced more than two years ago the Nexus 1000v, which replaces the embedded virtual switch within a hypervisor, has been compatible exclusively with VMware’s products.

Cisco is also adding support for Microsoft to its Unified Computing System’s VM-FEX (Virtual Machine Fabric Extender), software that automatically provisions and manages virtual machine networks withing Cisco’s blade server chassis.

These capabilities will become available with the release of Windows 8 Server next year.

It’s nice to see Cisco broaden its virtualization partnerships beyond VMware. It remains to be seen whether it will add support for Citrix XenServer or KVM.