Cisco introduces lightweight hypervisor as an alternative to VMware for collaboration workloads

Cisco unveils a specialised hypervisor aimed at simplifying deployment for on-premises calling applications, challenging VMware’s dominance in collaboration workload virtualisation amid shifting vendor strategies.

Cisco is preparing to ship a pared-back hypervisor aimed specifically at running its calling applications, offering customers an alternative to VMware for virtualising services such as Unified Communications Manager. According to Cisco’s announcement and company blog posts, NFVIS-for-UC is a bespoke edition of its existing NFVIS platform that the vendor says is designed to simplify deployment and management for on-premises calling environments.

The move follows a shift in VMware’s product strategy after its acquisition by Broadcom, with the vendor emphasising the higher-priced VMware Cloud Foundation bundle over the lower-tier vSphere suites many smaller customers historically used. Industry reporting and vendor commentary indicate some organisations that virtualise only a small set of collaboration workloads have become disenchanted with renewal terms that appear to favour VCF commitments over standalone vSphere licences.

NFVIS-for-UC is not a general-purpose hypervisor; Cisco has assigned it a distinct product identifier, separate pricing and a new licensing model, and has tweaked the administrative interface to suit the target workloads. Cisco’s blog and product literature stress the product will be lightweight and focused on “only the essential virtualization features”, positioning it as an easy-to-manage option for teams responsible for delivering calling services.

Technical documentation published by Cisco outlines supported hardware, VM placement rules and software compatibility for on-premises calling applications running on NFVIS-for-UC, listing Cisco calling appliances and virtualised Expressway platforms among tested configurations. The vendor’s virtualisation guide also indicates updated versions of Cisco’s collaboration software are prepared to run under the new hypervisor, signalling readiness for customer deployments.

That shift marks a change from longstanding Cisco guidance that historically required VMware vSphere ESXi and, for certain infrastructures, vCenter, as the supported virtualisation stack for collaboration workloads. Cisco’s official virtualisation requirements still identify VMware components as mandatory in many supported architectures, underscoring that NFVIS-for-UC represents a targeted policy change rather than a broader abandonment of prior compatibility guidance.

Independent analysts see this as part of a broader trend in which vendors tighten the integration between their applications, hardware and virtualisation layers. Michael Warrilow of Virtified told reporting outlets that product-specific hypervisors are a return to earlier computing models and observed that virtual appliances complicate migration away from a single hypervisor platform. Warrilow added that multi-hypervisor management capabilities are likely to become increasingly important over the next few years.

For some customers the new option offers a route off VMware for narrowly scoped collaboration workloads, but it also raises trade-offs. Industry reporting notes VMware continues to pursue VCF sales and has reported revenue growth under Broadcom, while lifecycle notices for NFVIS releases highlight the need for customers to plan upgrades and support timelines carefully. Organisations weighing a move to NFVIS-for-UC should therefore balance potential cost and operational simplicity against longer-term vendor dependency and product lifecycle considerations.

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Source: Fuse Wire Services