They said we were crazy.

Back in 2009, when we unveiled the Cisco Unified Computing System, industry pundits -namely our competitors in the server market -said we'd overreached in a technology arena we knew little about.

What we introduced was an innovative solution that unified compute, network, storage access, management and virtualization into one integrated platform designed to fundamentally eliminate complexity and increase business agility. We changed the game by engineering a high-performance, highly secure and flexible computing system, not just another server like everyone else.

Today, we are pleased to announce that we now have 60,000 active UCS customers. Starting from almost nothing just eight years ago, we've built a business that is now consistently ranked in the top-two in blade server shipments worldwide, nearly doubling the number of customers over the past three years alone.

UCS has become a primary building block in the world's most advanced data centers, delivering the benefits of a converged infrastructure in ready-to-deploy stacks.  Consider these achievements:

• No. 1 converged systems server revenue in 2016 through major partnerships with companies like NetApp, Dell|EMC, IBM and PureStorage (source: IDC's 4Q2016 WW Quarterly Converged Systems Tracker, March 23, 2017)
• No. 1 platform of choice for SAP HANA among 300 respondents in a N. American IDC survey. (source: IDC, Infrastructure for Business Analytics -SAP, Doc #US42198216, Dec 2016)
• HyperFlex, our hyperconverged solution based on UCS, has attracted nearly 1,500 customers in just over a year. ESG Lab validated that Cisco HyperFlex delivered higher, more consistent performance than other similarly configured HCI solutions. (source: ESG Lab Validation, Cisco HyperFlex: Hyperconverged Infrastructure with Consistent High Performance for Virtual Machines, March 2017).
• Named a leader in both the May 2016 Magic Quadrant for modular services and the October 2016 Magic Quadrant for integrated systems for servers status in the Gartner Magic Quadrants for servers and converged infrastructure, respectively.

To this day, no other technology solution has been able to match the architectural superiority and sustainable differentiation of UCS. We have continuously added innovations to the portfolio and will be introducing our fifth-generation UCS next month.

And in the coming months, Cisco and our world-class data center partner ecosystem, which includes new partners like Docker and Turbonomic, will introduce a series of UCS innovations on multiple levels. At Cisco Live U.S. in Las Vegas, June 25-29, we will demonstrate new system, software, orchestration and management solutions that will allow our customers to foster innovation, reduce risk, and eliminate complexity within their data center environments.

Cisco has never been more committed to our UCS customers' success. We will continue to innovate and create new value and business opportunities for UCS customers around the world.

While other vendors mimic our message while delivering their same tired technology, we want to thank our customers who've placed their confidence in Cisco's "crazy" vision of a Unified Computing System.

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