It's a new year and we're looking forward to an exciting 2015. Let pause to take one last look at 2014. For the teams from Cisco and Microsoft supporting our data center alliance, it was a very good year. We expanded our partnership, developed integrated solutions and aligned our field and partner teams to deliver even more customer value. We used our social and digital platforms to keep you informed and stay engaged. Here are some of the highlights.

An Expanded Partnership

After years of close collaboration, Cisco and Microsoft took our relationship to even greater heights with a new three year agreement. Jim McHugh, Cisco VP of UCS Marketing, blogged on how integrated solutions based on Cisco UCS, Nexus, and Microsoft Hyper-V, and Windows Server 2012 R2, enable I.T. organizations to dramatically improve effectiveness and accelerate customers' journeys to the cloud. Cisco VP of ISVs and Global Technology Partners, Denny Trevett's blog focused on how Cisco and Microsoft aligned our channel programs to encourage solution delivery in a partner-to-partner model.

In June, Cisco UCS achieved the top rank in the Americas' x86 Blade Server Market measured by revenue market share, according to IDC. Microsoft CVP, Brad Anderson, took the opportunity to share his thoughts on the joint innovation from Cisco and Microsoft that is helping to drive this market momentum. Listen in.

https://youtu.be/DMrBy_r2WwI

Integrated Solutions

Through our partnership, Cisco and Microsoft deliver validated solutions to help IT organizations drive business innovation and deliver business outcomes. In his blog for WPC, Rex Backman provided an overview of integrated solutions from Cisco and Microsoft for Data Center Modernization, Private Cloud and SQL Server.

Cisco and Microsoft can help customers migrate off legacy platforms and successfully virtualize, automate, and manage both physical and virtual environments with a modern solution based on Cisco UCS, Windows Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2. Check out Renee Yao's blog for all the details.

IT leaders are increasingly deploying private clouds to deliver IT-as-a-service, reduce costs, increase efficiency, and enable new business models. Rex Backman summarized the ESG white paper on Cisco and Microsoft optimized strategies for Private Cloud and highlighted how Cisco Validated Designs and Microsoft Fast Track solutions for Private cloud can accelerate these deployments.

Turning data into business intelligence takes the right tools and infrastructure. Cisco UCS provides the optimal platform for SQL Server 2014. Cisco Engineering VP, Satinder Sethi shares his thoughts in this video.

Cisco solutions architect, Frank Cicalese blogged on the top reasons to run SQL Server 2014 workloads on Cisco UCS. The proof is in the performance. Girish Kulkarni highlighted this point in his blogs outlining the record-setting TPC-H performance benchmarks for SQL Server on UCS with C460 M4 Rack Servers and C240 M3 Rack Servers.

Of course, SQL Server and the PASS community are synonymous. We had a great time connecting with the PASS Community at SQLSaturdays in Atlanta, Boston, Houston, San Diego and Silicon Valley. We were especially pleased to support our first European event in Barcelona. Renee Yao shared her thoughts in her blog. We're proud to continue our support in 2015 and are pleased to sponsor SQLSaturdays in Nashville and Austin in January and look forward to continued engagement with the PASS community throughout the year.

TechEd and WPC

As you can tell, we embrace social and digital platforms to engage Microsoft IT Pros and partners. But let's face it, there's no substitute for personal conversations. That's why we went big at TechEd and sponsored events in North America (Houston), Europe (Barcelona) and Australia (Sydney and Melbourne). We were also proud to sponsor WPC where we discussed opportunities with the Microsoft partner community. (Didn't think you'd escape without at least a few pointers to my blogs did you?)

These have been terrific opportunities for Cisco experts to connect directly with IT Pros and partners supporting Microsoft oriented data centers. We've enjoyed the thousands of conversations we had at these events and are looking forward to continuing to engage at Microsoft Ignite in Chicago and WPC in Orlando in 2015. See you then.

Indeed, 2014 was a very good year. Cisco and Microsoft will continue to collaborate to drive innovation and deliver solutions that help our customers accelerate their journey to the cloud. We'll continue to use this blog and social platforms to stay connected, share news and listen. Thanks for joining us.

For more information on the Cisco and Microsoft solutions visit: cisco.com/go/Microsoft.