Interest in VMware-Cisco relationship increased since the surprising announcement that networking giant’s CEO will deliver one of VMworld 2007 keynote.
Cisco just invested $150 million in VMware, and its working with virtualization leader since 2004 on its VFrame product. But there’s something bigger, from a technical point of view, that John T. Chambers will unveil during its speech.
VMware will allow 3rd party vendors to develop their virtual switches for ESX Server virtual network, and Cisco is expected to be the first company announcing such product (Virtual Catalyst?).
With this move VMware hopes to address enterprise customers needs, which are greatly unsatisfied with current unmanaged virtual switches, and Cisco hopes to pioneer the new market of virtual networking.
First details about this new feature were disclosed at VMware TSX conference earlier this year, but without timeframes. A keynote during VMworld, which expects over 10,000 attendees this year, is for sure the best opportunity to make the announcement.