History
While the term has been in use since the mid to late 1990s the growth of cloud computing and Cisco's evangelism of unified data center fabrics followed by unified computing (an evolutionary data center architecture whereby blade servers are integrated or unified with supporting network and storage infrastructure) starting March 2009 has renewed interest in the technology. Other companies offering unified or fabric computing systems include Liquid Computing Corporation and Egenera.
There have been mixed reactions to Cisco's architecture, particularly from rivals who claim that these proprietary systems will lock out other vendors. Analysts claim that this "ambitious new direction" is "a big risk" as companies like IBM and HP who have previously partnered with Cisco on data center projects (accounting for $2–3bn of Cisco's annual revenue) are now competing with them.
Read more about this topic: Fabric Computing
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