Cisco and EMC with VMware, have introduced Virtual Computing Environment coalition, in a move to enhance customers ability to increase business through IT infrastructure flexibility, and lower IT, energy and real estate costs through data centre virtualisation and a transition to private cloud infrastructures.
The companies said the coalition offers organisations an approach to data centre transformation with reductions in both capital and operating expenses. With the introduction of Vblock infrastructure packages, the coalition will provide customers with an approach to streamlining and optimising IT strategies around private clouds. Vblock infrastructure packages are fully integrated, tested and validated packages that combine virtualisation, networking, computing, storage, security, and management technologies from Cisco, EMC and VMware.
Reportedly, the coalition offers a family of Vblock infrastructure packages including Vblock2, which supports up to 3,000-6,000 virtual machines and is designed for large-scale and green field virtualisation; Vblock1, which supports from 800 to 3,000 virtual machines and is designed for consolidation and optimisation initiatives; and Vblock0 that supports 300 to 800 vitual machines.
The coalition will scale customer adoption of Vblock systems by enabling a global community of systems integrators, service providers, channel partners, and independent software vendors (ISVs). The coalition has also established unified presales, professional services and support capabilities to simplify customer engagement, the companies said.
In addition to the virtual computing environment coalition, Cisco and EMC have also introduced Acadia, a joint venture focused on accelerating customer build-outs of private cloud infrastructures through enablement of service providers and large enterprise customers.
Acadia’s ‘build, operate, transfer’ model for delivering the Vblock architecture, addressing people, process and technology, will offer customers further choice, flexibility and cost advantages as they seek to virtualise their IT infrastructures and evolve to private cloud environments, the companies claim.
John Chambers, chairman and CEO of Cisco, said: Today’s announcement addresses our customers’ greatest challenges and opportunities in the data centre. This coalition is about more than technology and partnership. It is about an entirely new and unique approach to the data centre that improves utilisation, power consumption and security of information, all in a way that lowers the total cost to the customer, not via a box, but with a network-based architectural approach for optimising virtual resources.
