EMC VSPEX BLUE Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Appliance

Highlights

• Delivers compute, storage, networking and management in an agile, scalable, trusted and easy to manage hyper-converged infrastructure appliance
• Simplifies IT Infrastructure deployment and management
• Defines new levels of ease-of-use with power on to VM provisioning in 15 minutes 
• Embedded integrated management experience, downloadable software titles and secure remote support
• For infrastructure consolidations, virtual desktops in large remote or branch offices and MSPs
  Available through ecosystem of distributor partners including Arrow, Avnet, Networld, TD Azlan and Tech Data

EMC Corporation announced availability of its VSPEX BLUE hyper-converged infrastructure appliance that delivers compute, storage, networking and management powered by VMware EVO:RAIL and EMC software.

The VSPEX BLUE enables customers to go from power on to provisioning VMs in under 15 minutes, offering time to value when compared to other hyper-converged infrastructure offerings. Its 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.

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 for infrastructure consolidations, virtual desktops in large remote or branch offices and MSPs.
 
The 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 EVO:RAIL’s intuitive design principles.

VSPEX BLUE Manager
With VSPEX BLUE, EMC continues is offering a one-stop market to download value-added software, from EMC and ecosystem partners to meet ever-changing business demands.

The VSPEX BLUE Manager provides a seamless end user experience that embodies the simplicity functionality EVO:RAIL customers expect. From the VSPEX BLUE Manager, users can 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. It 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 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 BC with EMC RecoverPoint for VMs, 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 appliance also provides 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 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 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 EMC Business Partner Program distributors for the 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, it joins VCE Vblock Systems and VSPEX Reference Architectures as part of EMC’s lineup of converged offerings.

The VSPEX hyper-converged infrastructure appliance is available February 17.

Mark Bowker, senior analyst, ESG, said: “ESG research validates that early adopters of converged infrastructure are achieving benefits associated with improved service and support, ease of management, and an improved TCO. 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.”

Tim Frank, EVP, sales, Ahead LLC, said: “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 VMs 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, VP product and partner management, CDW, said: “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,y they need enabling them to add IT when it suits their business.”

Gregg Ambulos, SVP, global sales, EMC, said: “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’ gobl each and scale to take this highy dffeentiated 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, VP, GM VSPEX, EMC, said: “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.”

Shannon Poulin, VP and GM, data center group, Intel Corp., said: “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, VP, EVO:RAIL Group, VMware, Inc., said: “Today we are excited with EMC’s announcement of VSPEX BLUE, a 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.”

To 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.