Cisco Gets 'Green Certification' From Miercom
Another facet of the program will challenge networking vendors to design, develop and deploy products that lower energy costs and power consumption; comply with increasingly stringent environmental directives; reduce eWaste; and heighten the green effect of network infrastructure.
The initiative, which was announced last week at Interop Las Vegas 2008, also named its first product to be Certified Green: the Cisco Catalyst 3750-E, 3560-E, 3750, 3560 and 2960 Series Switches.
According to an announcement from both Miercom and Cisco, testing and evaluation found the fixed switches offer efficient power draw under various real-world conditions; high-efficiency power supply operation with intelligent power management capabilities; and superior product efficiency, including VLAN, remote management and other "green-enabling" features.
In a statement, John McCool, senior vice president and general manager of San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco's campus switching systems technology group and co-chair of the Cisco EcoBoard, praised Miercom for recognizing green networking. He added that Cisco is working diligently to promote green networking initiatives.
"Focusing on the improvement of power efficiency and green practices in our products is a top priority for Cisco," he said. "We are proud that our Catalyst switches are the first to be certified under this important new program. The certification not only rewards our current work, but also serves as further incentive to push forward on innovations aimed at delivering even greater green returns for our customers."
The Miercom Green Certification is powered by Ixia, an IP performance test system and service verification platform for IP infrastructure and services. Ixia solutions are designed to fully load and exercise Layer 2 through Layer 7 network elements and infrastructures. The solutions emulate real-world data center application traffic and the Ixia test can test multiple application profiles to provide accurate performance per power benchmarks.
According to Miercom, the Certified Green program will combine detailed measurement criteria with a holistic view of product impact in enabling the green IT and business practices of a network operator. The program will certify products based on power efficiency, including power usage and management, heat dissipation, cooling requirements, energy efficiency and overall product efficiency.