Vblock Powered Solutions for VMware and SAP Available From VCE

VCE, the Virtual Computing Environment, formed by Cisco and EMC with investments from VMware and Intel, announced the availability of Vblock Powered Solutions for VMware View and Vblock Powered Solutions for SAP.

Vblock Powered Solutions are pre-tested applications that are certified to work on the Vblock platform. VCE currently has more than 100  partners in 29 countries actively selling Vblock to a growing, diverse global customer base.

VCE also announced the availability of end-to-end Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) capabilities for its Vblock, providing customers with added simplicity, flexibility and efficiency in deployment.  

Both announcements enable customers to quickly and efficiently take advantage of virtualized environments by eliminating the time-consuming and costly planning, architecting and testing processes that consume most IT resources in the data center today.

General Availability of Vblock Powered Solutions
The Vblock Powered Solution for VMware View 4.5, available, enables customers to accelerate virtual desktop deployment while meeting security and compliance requirements. Customers can scale virtual desktops efficiently at an attractive cost, maintain administration control, and provide users with more freedom and protection.

The Vblock Powered Solution for SAP, also available, allows customers to more easily transition their SAP applications to a virtual environment running on Vblock, and ensure their new SAP deployments are up and running more efficiently. SAP on Vblock has demonstrated measurable TCO benefits, enhanced IT efficiency, and ease of deployment. A total cost of ownership for SAP on Vblock study conducted by VMS shows that customers can achieve savings of between 19%-26% on hardware/software investment, implementation, and upgrade costs in large enterprise environments.

End-to-End Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCoE)
capabilities for Vblock
VCE also announced availability of end-to-end Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) capabilities for its market-leading Vblock. The Vblock platform is a pre-integrated and tested solution that combines the industry’s leading virtualization, server, networking, storage, management and security technologies. Vblock arrives at a customer site assembled and tested, ready for immediate deployment so customers can get new applications up and running more quickly.

FCoE converges Fiber Channel and Ethernet into one unified fabric, providing a simplified architecture for both network and storage traffic.  

"The availability of the SAP and VDI validated solutions on Vblock enables customers to reduce time to deliver, maximize resource efficiency and achieve business value in far less time than alternative methods," said Todd Pavone, Senior Vice President for Solutions, VCE. "The addition of FCoE to these solutions gives customers the flexibility to choose the right technology for a wide variety of workloads."

In addition, Vblock now supports
the following new features:

• Automated storage tiering, including EMC FAST, FAST Cache and FAST VP, providing the ability to easily create and apply tiering policies to transparently automate the control, placement, and movement of data within the storage system based on business needs.
• Support for EMC PowerPath V/E for intelligent path routing and optimized load balancing across all configurations of the Vblock platform, automating and optimizing server, storage and path utilization in a dynamic virtual environment, providing users with predictable and consistent information access.
• Introduction of the B250/B440 and the B230 UCS blades. Cisco Unified Computing System innovations combined with Intel Xeon 5600 Series achieve major performance results in key industry standard benchmarks.

"VCE has beaten the industry to the punch with the first turnkey solution of end-to-end Ethernet with FCoE," Stuart Miniman, Senior Analyst, Wikibon. "These enhancements to the Vblock platform, including the general availability of certified solutions for VDI and  SAP, add significantly to the promise of converged infrastructure in regards to making IT more flexible for the end-user and cost-effective for the business."