VCE Drives Even Greater Levels Of Convergence With New VCE Systems And Solutions To Further Simplify And Accelerate The Journey To The Cloud

RICHARDSON, Texas, Oct. 6, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- VCE, the leader in converged infrastructure systems, today unveiled new and updated Vblock Systems, integrated solutions and technology extensions to drive greater IT flexibility, agility and simplicity for enterprises and service providers globally. These systems and solutions broaden the VCE portfolio of turnkey converged infrastructures that transform customer data centers for private and hybrid clouds.

Customers will be able to order new Vblock Systems, including the new all-flash-based Vblock System 540 for mixed high-performance workloads, as well as factory-built and fully supported VCE Integrated Solutions and technology extensions that bring the VCE Experience to a broader range of industry-leading converged infrastructure offerings.  The VCE Experience includes pre-integrated, pre-tested and pre-validated VCE converged infrastructure solutions that are delivered and supported by VCE as a single product, with seamless component-level updates, ongoing lifecycle assurance and unified support across all components.

Converged infrastructure is quickly becoming recognized as the fastest route to realizing business value from next-generation cloud technologies. Industry analysts expect the integrated infrastructure category for integrated systems to grow at 43.2 percent CAGR to $11.2 billion in 2017, an increase from $3.6 billion in 2013¹. Industry analysts have named VCE the market share leader in integrated infrastructure systems, with the highest revenue of any other converged infrastructure vendor².

"The IT industry continues to shift toward hybrid cloud computing models, which requires organizations to re-evaluate their approach for how to deliver IT services," said Todd Pavone, executive vice president, product strategy and development, VCE. "Our new Vblock Systems, integrated solutions and technology extensions are a significant step forward in helping VCE customers prepare for the hybrid world, providing new options that help them simplify how they deploy and manage infrastructure while enabling innovation and operational efficiencies that can drive value back into their businesses."

New Vblock Systems
VCE has extended the world's most advanced converged infrastructure portfolio with the latest best-of-breed technologies and the industry's first all-flash converged infrastructure system – all designed to help customers build the foundation for private and hybrid clouds:

• The new Vblock System 740 is the industry's most advanced, intelligent converged infrastructure, with unmatched performance, capacity and availability for the most demanding mission-critical applications. The Vblock System 740, powered by next-generation Cisco Unified Computing, Cisco Nexus ACI-Ready networking and EMC VMAX® 3 storage, is VCE's flagship converged infrastructure that introduces several key new capabilities including 3X storage performance, 50 percent lower TCO and radically simple provisioning based on service level objectives.
• The new Vblock System 540 is the industry's first all-flash-based converged infrastructure system for consolidating mixed workloads like private clouds, databases and related business applications. The Vblock System 540 is powered by EMC's market-leading XtremIO™ all-flash arrays and next-generation Cisco Unified Computing, Cisco Nexus ACI-Ready networking. It delivers breakthrough consolidation and agility benefits like instant, space-efficient, full-performance copy services for applications like SAP with many instances across multiple application landscapes.
• The new Vblock System 240 is a complete converged infrastructure system for medium-sized businesses and distributed remote offices. Based on EMC's entry-level VNX5200, Vblock System 240 is engineered with a streamlined form factor and designed for customers who desire a minimal-scale, high-performance infrastructure solution.

VCE Integrated Solutions for Cloud Management

VCE Integrated Solutions for Cloud Management are new offerings that provide pre-integrated, pre-tested and pre-validated software on Vblock Systems to simplify deployment and management of cloud computing.

Seamlessly integrated with Vblock Systems converged infrastructure and VCE Vision Intelligent Operations software, these out-of-the-box cloud foundation solutions support rapid, cost-effective implementation of private or hybrid cloud infrastructure with the lowest risk:

• The VCE Integrated Solution for Cloud Management with Cisco provides pre-integrated, pre-tested and pre-validated software for IaaS and Vblock virtual resource provisioning based on Cisco UCS Director. This solution greatly simplifies the automation and provisioning of virtual data centers running on Vblock Systems with efficient allocation of compute, network and storage resources, enabling customers to focus on the development and delivery of innovative cloud services rather than manual processes and routine maintenance.
• The VCE Integrated Solution for Cloud Management with VMware provides pre-integrated, pre-tested and pre-validated software from the VMware vRealize™ Suite management platform. This solution enables customers to automate the provisioning and orchestration of private and hybrid cloud environments to reduce time-consuming manual processes. The vRealize Suite also features intelligent operations, capacity, performance, configuration and log management, to provide infrastructure and application service quality, as well as full business management with automated service costing and analytics.

VCE Technology Extensions

VCE technology extensions are pre-integrated, pre-tested and pre-validated to enable additional flexibility and scalability for new and existing Vblock Systems:

• The VCE technology extension for EMC® Isilon® storage integrates powerful scale-out storage with a Vblock System to cost-effectively consolidate and manage enterprise data and applications. Vblock Systems can now be easily expanded to incorporate large-scale user data for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), highly efficient enterprise data lakes for Big Data and Hadoop data analytics, and scale-out NAS. Additionally, by enabling multi-use, multi-protocol and multi-tenant capabilities, the VCE technology extension for EMC Isilon storage accelerates adoption of emerging applications such as Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS).
• The VCE technology extension for Cisco UCS compute utilizes next-generation Cisco Unified Computing technology to power compute-intensive applications, such as specialized graphics processing, performing seismic modeling, handling digital media transcoding and complying with HIPAA privacy and security regulations. Seamless integration with Vblock System converged infrastructure enables compute resources to be added incrementally and consistently provisioned, monitored and managed.

ANALYST & CUSTOMER ENDORSEMENTS

"VCE disrupted the IT infrastructure market, transitioning it from individual discreetly managed components to converged Vblock Systems that are engineered, sold and supported as a single system. The new Vblock System 540 enhances VCE's lineup with flash storage in a multi-workload system to drive benefits such as application acceleration, agility, low latency, high performance while ensuring the pre-integrated experience customers expect from Vblock Systems."

Mark Bowker, Senior Analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group

"IT has become a key enabler for the healthcare industry. With the Vblock System as our private cloud, we've been able to boost application performance and availability, lower our total cost of ownership, as well as effectively serve our users' demands and meet government regulations for healthcare programs. VCE's detailed integration and expertise in converged infrastructure transformed our data center, and we believe the new VCE solutions can provide the same evolution for customers as they head into the next era of IT."

Marivi Stuchinsky, Vice President, Enterprise Infrastructure Services, Molina Healthcare

PARTNER ENDORSEMENTS

"As the Internet of Everything continues to gain momentum, customers are looking for complete solutions to unlock the full potential of the cloud. By combining VCE Vblock Systems and VCE Integrated Solution for Cloud Management built on Cisco's UCS Integrated Infrastructure including Nexus 9000 technologies, customers can quickly implement cloud strategies. We continue to collaborate closely with VCE to build integrated infrastructure solutions and enable customers to easily consume private and hybrid cloud capabilities."

Jim McHugh, Vice President, Unified Computing Solutions Marketing, Cisco

"First generation converged infrastructure systems from VCE have proven their value in many global enterprises with EMC storage platforms underpinning their successful deployment. Today VCE has upped the ante again by introducing their newest Vblocks featuring EMC's state of the art VMAX³ hybrid arrays for hyper-scale mixed workload environments along with the first-ever all-flash Vblock System 540 featuring EMC's market-leading EMC XtremIO flash storage systems for consolidating high-performance workloads. VCE customers can further extend the versatility of their Vblock Systems to efficiently manage and support large VDI deployments or to build out enterprise data lakes for Big Data and Hadoop data analytics through newly integrated capabilities with EMC Isilon scale-out NAS solutions."

Subbu Iyer, Senior Vice President, EMC

"VMware's longstanding partnership with VCE has empowered our customers to realize greater agility and flexibility in their IT infrastructure. With the new VCE Integrated Solution for Cloud Management with VMware, we are continuing to provide organizations with the ability to quickly automate, provision and orchestrate their private and hybrid cloud environments."

Raghu Raghuram, Executive Vice President, Software-Defined Data Center Division, VMware

AVAILABILITY

VCE Vblock Systems 740, 540 and 240 are orderable today.

Vblock Integrated Solutions for Cloud Management with Cisco and VMware will be orderable within 90 days.

VCE technology extensions for EMC Isilon storage Cisco UCS Computing will be orderable within 90 days.

VCE products and solutions are available globally from VCE and its network of solution provider partners.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

• Cisco Blog: VCE Refreshes Vblock Portfolio with New Cisco UCS servers
• VMware Blog: New VCE Integrated Solution with vRealize Suite: Accelerating Customers' Path to the Hybrid Cloud
• VCE Blog: Introducing Industry-Leading Innovations for Today's and Tomorrow's Needs

VCE ON SOCIAL MEDIA

• Vblog, VCE Corporate Blog
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Google+
• YouTube

ABOUT VCE

VCE, formed by Cisco and EMC with investments from VMware and Intel, accelerates the adoption of converged infrastructure and cloud-based computing models that dramatically reduce the cost of IT while improving time to market for our customers. VCE, through the Vblock systems, delivers the industry's only true converged infrastructure systems, leveraging Cisco compute and network technology, EMC storage and data protection, and VMware virtualization and virtualization management. VCE solutions are available through an extensive partner network, and cover horizontal applications, vertical industry offerings, and application development environments, allowing customers to focus on business innovation instead of integrating, validating, and managing IT infrastructure.

¹ IDC, Worldwide Integrated Systems 2014-2017 Forecast, March 2014 #246938 

² Gartner, Market Share Analysis: Data Center Hardware Integrated Systems, December 12, 2013

VCE and Vblock are registered trademarks or trademarks of VCE Company LLC or its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective organizations. The use of the word "partner" or "partnership" does not imply a legal partnership relationship between VCE and any other organization.

Cisco and the Cisco logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. A listing of Cisco's trademarks can be found at www.cisco.com/go/trademarks. Third-party trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company.

EMC, VMAX³, Isilon, and XtremIO are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners.

VMware and VMware vRealize are registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and other jurisdictions. The use of the word "partner" or "partnership" does not imply a legal partnership relationship between VMware and any other company.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

EMC
This release contains "forward-looking statements" as defined under the Federal Securities Laws. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of certain risk factors, including but not limited to: (i) adverse changes in general economic or market conditions; (ii) delays or reductions in information technology spending; (iii) the relative and varying rates of product price and component cost declines and the volume and mixture of product and services revenues; (iv) competitive factors, including but not limited to pricing pressures and new product introductions; (v) component and product quality and availability; (vi) fluctuations in VMware, Inc.'s operating results and risks associated with trading of VMware stock; (vii) the transition to new products, the uncertainty of customer acceptance of new product offerings and rapid technological and market change; (viii) risks associated with managing the growth of our business, including risks associated with acquisitions and investments and the challenges and costs of integration, restructuring and achieving anticipated synergies; (ix) the ability to attract and retain highly qualified employees; (x) insufficient, excess or obsolete inventory; (xi) fluctuating currency exchange rates; (xii) threats and other disruptions to our secure data centers or networks; (xiii) our ability to protect our proprietary technology; (xiv) war or acts of terrorism; and (xv) other one-time events and other important factors disclosed previously and from time to time in EMC's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. EMC disclaims any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release.

SOURCE VCE