HP announced yesterday that, six months after beginning the project, it has removed all Cisco-branded core networking-hardware from its six main data-centres.
The equipment has been replaced by 75 of HP's own A-series routers and switches, and the feat was managed without any downtime. According to the company's vice-president of Infrastructure, the change has resulted in "performance even better than we expected".
He also took the opportunity to add that, "our engineers have done a great job proving it's possible to run a network for a company the size and scale of HP on our own products, and we did the migration without taking a data center offline".
Normally this sort of announcement wouldn't be newsworthy, since HP just seems to be showing-off the capability of its hardware to customers and investors. However, this is also the latest thinly-veiled shot across the competition's bow in the increasingly competitive server market.
Cisco ruffled quite a few feathers when it expanded beyond networking with its own server line at the start of last year. HP, on the other hand, took a major step into the enterprise-networking market - and a step onto Cisco's toes - late last year when it picked up 3Com for a cool $2.7bn. In fact, all of the A-series hardware is a result of that acquisition.
This was all too much for Cisco, who then removed the world's largest computer-maker from its list of certified partners, effectively cutting the company out of its product-development process and roadmaps.
The two companies - who used to frequently work together, before their products started to overlap - are now firmly in competition and will continue to duke it out with Oracle and IBM in what is becoming a very competitive market segment.
