Hewlett-Packard and Cisco Systems are announcing an expanded partnership in which HP's Technical Services group will implement enterprise-class wireless installations based on Cisco's new 3750G wireless controllers and Unified Wireless Network Software 4.0.
Applications supported by the new partnership include IT asset tracking, presence-based applications, voice, and intrusion detection and prevention.
"We're extending the relationship to take advantage of some Cisco launches," said Brian Brouillette, HP's vice president for Mission Critical, Network and Education Services (aka HP Technical Services). "We're extending what we do with design and integration for the new WLAN [wireless LAN] products that Cisco is bringing out."
"HP has established a practice for pervasive wireless LAN deployments," said Ben Gibson, Cisco's director of Mobility Solutions Marketing. "We're seeing a second wave of deployments going beyond departmental or spot deployments and moving much more toward truly pervasive deployments. To do that, particularly with the larger deployments, are the associated applications and the associated business case behind that. That's really the focus of this partnership."
The big change that brought about the HP/Cisco partnership is the way in which enterprises are moving to wireless.
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"To date wireless LANs have been deployed on a rather tactical level," Gibson said. "What we really see is that wireless LANs are really growing up in the enterprise. There are other advanced applications that will also be enabled by that same network infrastructure. To do so requires more than just deploying access points and controllers."
"The Cisco products aren't going to deploy themselves," Brouillette pointed out. "Part of the value HP has is highly repeatable ways to get these into your enterprise."
Brouillette said HP provides services for the deployment of the Cisco infrastructure. "Customers don't want the product to just show up at their doorstep," he said, "and they don't want to buy services without having a product they're trying to deploy." Brouillette said it makes no sense to have one without the other.
"Where HP and Cisco have come together is that if you're thinking about these new products, you have services from HP to make your deployment successful," he said. This is especially important when an enterprise has an existing infrastructure that can't be down during the deployment, Brouillette said.
"You can ensure that these all work together as a system," Gibson said, "That's where HP comes in." Gibson said that adding a wireless infrastructure to an existing enterprise can be very complex, especially if it's a larger enterprise. There, the wireless network has to be completely integrated with the existing wired network.
"We offer a unified approach to a wireless network," Gibson said. "We have common implementation software and services capability that really reduces the IT department's burden of managing separate networks." With the new Cisco products, he said, "it doesn't matter if they're a wireless or wired user."
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