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UPDATE: In an official announcement, Cisco, EMC and VMware fleshed out their plan to jointly provide a full-stack virtualized IT solution that was leaked to the press last week.
The solution – called Vblock and consisting of Cisco's Unified Computing System, EMC's storage hardware and VMware virtualization software – will come in three capacity sizes: 3,000-6,000 VM's, 800-3,000 VM's and 300-800 VM's.
The companies called their new partnership the Virtual Computing Environment coalition, explaining that they had been working together on a “shared vision” of private cloud computing over the past year.
Vblock infrastructure packages are fully integrated, tested and validated, with “end-to-end vendor accountability.” EMC developed IonixTM, a unified element manager for Vblock also announced on Tuesday. The architecture uses EMC subsidiary RSA's security solutions.
The product will be delivered by Acadia – a joint venture newly formed by Cisco and EMC. The venture is also financed by VMware and Intel, whose Xeon processors power the UCS.
END UPDATE
Cisco and EMC’s unannounced plan to team up on providing full-stack IT infrastructure as a service has leaked out to the press last week. A Reuters report said the two companies were planning to announce the plan later this week but a Cisco spokeswoman declined to comment when contacted by DatacenterDynamics on Monday and EMC representatives did not return calls seeking comment.
The two companies’ joint solutions will reportedly be called vBlock and consist of Cisco servers and networking gear, EMC storage equipment and VMware virtualization software, according to Reuters. VMware is majority-owned by EMC.
The two companies’ joint venture will build full IT systems for their customers, according to their compute/networking/storage capacity needs. Clients will be able to buy the system as a service or locate it in their own data centers.
By expanding their ability to provide the full solution the partners are reportedly aiming to position themselves better to compete against vendors like HP and IBM –who already provide a wide variety of solutions – with emphasis on cloud-based delivery. While Cisco’s Unified Computing System includes servers and networking equipment, it does not include storage arrays.
EMC’s main business is storage.
If confirmed, the move would fit well within Cisco’s long-term strategy in the market transformed by cloud computing. Cisco CTO Padmasree Warrior said in June that the company planned to play in the Software-as-a-Service, Platform-as-a-Service and IT-as-a-Service layers of the cloud market. Something like vBlock would fall neatly within last of the three areas.
On Monday, international distributor Westcon Group said it had secured a deal to distribute Cisco’s UCS to channel partners around the world through its Comstor Worldwide branch. Comstor is also planning to roll out a series of UCS-related programs and service offerings in the near future.
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Keywords:EMC, Cisco, joint venture, vBlock, UCS, cloud computing | | 
