EMC Corporation announced availability of the EMC VSPEX BLUE hyper-converged infrastructure appliance that delivers compute, storage, networking and management powered by VMware EVO:RAIL and EMC software. The VSPEX BLUE hyper- converged infrastructure appliance enables customers to go from power on to provisioning virtual machines in under 15 minutes, offering impressive time to value when compared to other hyper-converged infrastructure offerings. The VSPEX BLUE scale-out infrastructure provides customers the ability to meet users’ changing demands at the speed of business and freedom from the burden of advanced IT forecasting.
Well suited for mid-market customers, VSPEX BLUE comprises common modular building blocks offering customers seamless linear scalability from one to four 2U/4-nodes. VSPEX BLUE is ideal for infrastructure consolidations, virtual desktops in large remote or branch offices and managed service providers.
The VSPEX BLUE hyper-converged infrastructure appliance simplifies IT configuration, management, and maintenance. EMC is delivering an integrated management experience for VSPEX BLUE customers. The VSPEX BLUE Manager extends the capabilities of the native EVO:RAIL Deployment, Configuration and Management (DCM) Engine, delivering a built-in support experience and Market providing customers access to select software titles and solutions from an EMC interface that leverages VMware EVO:RAIL’s clean and intuitive design principles.
VSPEX BLUE Manager
With the VSPEX BLUE hyper-converged infrastructure appliance, EMC continues to break new ground, offering for the first time a one-stop Market to download value-added software, from EMC and EMC ecosystem partners to quickly and easily meet ever-changing business demands.
The EMC VSPEX BLUE Manager provides a seamless and harmonious end user experience that embodies the simplicity and ease-of-use functionality VMware EVO:RAIL customers expect. From the VSPEX BLUE Manager, users can conveniently access electronic services, such as EMC knowledge base articles, access a wealth of community sourced online and real time information and familiarize themselves with EMC best practices for optimal appliance operations. The VSPEX BLUE Manager also simplifies IT management by delivering patch and software update notification that can be installed automatically without interruption or downtime so that the appliance software is always up-to-date.
VSPEX BLUE Market
Within the VSPEX BLUE Manager EMC has added VSPEX BLUE Market store. The Market provides customer access to trusted solutions and technologies that are developed by EMC and technology partners that are pre-validated for the VSPEX BLUE appliance and then made available to download. In the first release of the Market, EMC has included download access to business continuity with EMC RecoverPoint® for Virtual Machines, VMware vSphere® Data Protection™ Advanced providing disk based de-duplicated backup and recovery that is optimized for virtual environments, and access to virtually unlimited hybrid cloud storage via the EMC CloudArray® Gateway.
EMC Secure Remote Support (ESRS)
The EMC VSPEX BLUE hyper-converged infrastructure appliance also provides EMC Secure Remote Support (ESRS) that is built into the interface and provides end-to-end, consistent support via chat, community or phone with a single point of accountability for all hardware and software. With ESRS, EMC can periodically monitor the EMC VSPEX BLUE appliance and will be notified of failure enabling support to take preventative measures to help avoid downtime. When coupled with ESRS, EMC 24×7 Support is incredibly simple. All appliance issues regardless of whether they are hardware or software are handled by EMC.
Partner Ecosystem
EMC will focus initially on a select group of world-class EMC Business Partner Program distributors for the EMC VSPEX BLUE appliance including Arrow, Avnet, Networld, TD Azlan and Tech Data. Initial distribution partners have an established global reach, required manufacturing capabilities, and the necessary international certifications and capabilities.
Availability
EMC expands its converged infrastructure portfolio by affording increased customer choice with VSPEX BLUE. With fast, simple deployment, comprehensive support and the agility to scale, VSPEX BLUE joins VCE Vblock Systems and VSPEX Reference Architectures as part of EMC’s comprehensive and trusted lineup of converged offerings.
The EMC VSPEX hyper-converged infrastructure appliance is generally available February 17. Customers should contact their authorized EMC partner to learn more about VSPEX BLUE.
Market Industry Analyst Quote
Mark Bowker, Senior Analyst, ESG
“ESG research validates that early adopters of converged infrastructure are achieving benefits associated with improved service and support, ease of management, and an improved total cost of ownership. The VSPEX BLUE appliance will help enterprise IT accelerate the strategic imperative of virtualization/migration to a hybrid cloud. The appliance is a simple, low-risk path to delivering virtualization, and snaps well into an existing line of EMC solutions. It helps reduce TCO, and ensures availability and flexibility so that enterprise IT can achieve infrastructure excellence and connectivity to the cloud.”
Reseller Quotes:
Tim Frank, Executive Vice President, Sales, Ahead
“We see the EMC VSPEX BLUE appliance as providing the simplicity and agility that our customers are looking for in a hyper-converged infrastructure appliance. The automated install, presided virtual machines and simple user interface is what customers are asking for. The VSPEX BLUE appliance provides Ahead with the ability to provide our customers one appliance to facilitate the many mixed workloads that are required by IT today.”
Tom Cahill, Vice President Product and Partner Management, CDW
“The built-in differentiation in VSPEX BLUE separates EMC from a busy market segment. VSPEX BLUE will provide our customers greater ease of management, ease-of-use and access to a robust portfolio of additional EMC applications that will help make the day-to-day running of IT simpler. This product will give customers the agility they need enabling them to add IT when it suits their business.”
EMC Executive Quotes:
Gregg Ambulos, Senior Vice President, Global Sales, EMC Corporation
“EMC’s Business Partner Program is an ecosystem comprised of highly skilled and technical partners. Our distribution partners are uniquely qualified to help us address and meet the demands of the rapidly growing converged infrastructure space. We are excited bringing the EMC VSPEX BLUE appliance to market solely through this channel, where we can leverage our distributors’ global reach and scale to take this highly differentiated product to market. This new approach will provide better growth opportunities for our partners, while continuing to provide innovative, industry-leading solutions to our customers.”
Gil Shneorson, Vice President, General Manager VSPEX, EMC Corporation
“The VSPEX BLUE appliance represents a strategic addition to EMC’s existing highly successful converged infrastructure portfolio. EMC’s VSPEX BLUE appliance is delivered exclusively by our partners, and offers customers IT simplicity and agility backed by EMC’s award-winning global support organization, with built-in differentiation such as the VSPEX BLUE Manager, Market and EMC Secure Remote Support that will dramatically simplify how IT is deployed and managed.”
Strategic Technology Partner Quotes:
Shannon Poulin, Vice President and General Manager, Data Center Group – Intel
“A product like EMC’s VSPEX BLUE appliance helps address many of the challenges that Enterprise IT is facing by combining storage, with compute and network resources into a single hyper-converged infrastructure appliance, it delivers a solution that minimizes the latency and also makes it easier to install quickly and scale performance to address real-time workloads.”
Mornay Van Der Walt, Vice President, EVO:RAIL Group, VMware
“Today we are excited with EMC’s announcement of VSPEX BLUE, a radically simplified hyper-converged infrastructure appliance powered by EMC solutions and VMware EVO:RAIL. This hyper-converged offering is a fully integrated and automated virtual infrastructure building block, which can accelerate customer’s time to value for IT investments, and offers a fast and low risk path to the software-defined data center.”
Additional Resources
· For more information on VSPEX, go to http://www.emc.com/vspex
· To learn more about EMC Converged Infrastructure Solutions, follow @EMCCloud
· Read the IDC White Paper, “EMC Launches VSPEX BLUE for VMware EVO:RAIL Hyperconverged Systems with Unique Feature Set Enabling IT Transformation,” document number 253751.
· Join the #EMC conversation on Twitter
· Connect with EMC via Twitter @EMC Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and ECN
