Cisco and HP made a joint announcement on a technology co-engineered by both the companies – the Nexus B22 Fabric Extender (FEX) for HP (a.k.a Nexus B22HP), that is now generally available (GA). This is a new Fabric Extender custom-built in a blade form factor for the HP c-class Blade System server environment. HP customers using this Fabric Extender will be able to connect the HP BladeSystem chassis to the Cisco Nexus-based network and derive the benefits of Cisco’s Unified Fabric architecture. The Nexus B22HP Fabric Extender leverages the emerging IEEE 802.1BR standard. More information on the collaboration can be found here.

Shashi Kiran (Director, Market Management, Cisco): While most customers encourage competition among vendors, sometimes they also serve as active catalysts for vendors to come together, collaborate and deliver joint innovations that deliver true value. This is one of those times.