Cisco has begun sunsetting their media convergence servers (MCS) server line which has been supporting Unified Communication applications for nearly a decade. This sunsetting began about eighteen months ago with the removal of all HP based MCS servers, leaving only IBM. The removal of HP based MCS servers was timed shortly around the announcement of Cisco’s new home grown Unified Computing (UCS) line of servers. The UCS platform is purpose built for virtualization and offers quite a bit of cost savings and efficiencies over the traditional platforms.

Beginning with the 8.0 and continuing into the 8.5 releases, Cisco’s collaborative products are being certified for co-resident operations in virtual environments. Specifically, the UCS C210 and B200 platforms have been selected to replace what used to be MCS 7835 and 7845 servers. With a price point coming in just under the cost of a single MCS 7845, the C210 server can support four 7845 equivalents on a single piece of hardware.

Add into that, the advent of the Cisco Unified Workspace Licensing (CUWL) model, the UCS line allows for the to standing up and testing new services which organizations had previously been entitled to under CUWL but may have been hardware constrained in completing.

With all of that…why buy another MCS?