Note: This guest blog is from our partner EMC. In it Chad Dunn, Director of VSPEX Business Operations, comments on VSPEX as an infrastructure solution for Microsoft oriented I.T. environments.  Rex. 

Cisco and EMC Buddy-Up on VSPEX for Microsoft Private Cloud

At EMC we're always keen on working with fellow industry-leaders to deliver solutions that accelerate our customers' journey to cloud computing -and Cisco, the leader in fabric, is one of our most collaborative friends.  In particular, we've focused a ton of joint effort on EMC VSPEX.

Since VSPEX was launched last April, hundreds of customers from across the globe have adopted VSPEX powered by EMC and Cisco technology -from the US to the UK to Australia.  That success is tied directly to our collaboration, from completing Cisco Validated Designs for VSPEX to jointly certifying VSPEX as part of Microsoft's private cloud Fast Track 3.0 for "small"implementations.

If you aren't already familiar: What is VSPEX?

VSPEX is a set of complete virtualization solutions -integrating virtualization, servers, networking, storageandbackup -that are proven and validated by EMC and delivered to customers by channel partners.  That validation is extremely important too -why?  Because validation = confidence.  It ensures interoperability and fast deployment, and removes the complexity and risk.

Well... What's New?

With the increasing interest in Microsoft-based private clouds, we wanted to deliver a solution to customers that was not only validated by EMC and Cisco, but alsocertifiedby Microsoft.  Just like what we did with the "small" Microsoft private cloud Fast Track implementation -butbigger.  So that's exactly what we've done: EMC and Cisco have just certified a new VSPEX configuration as a Microsoft private cloud Fast Track solution forenterprise implementations.

The enterprise implementation along with the small implementation greatly accelerates the transformation to Microsoft private cloud environments for our customers, but also just as important is how VSPEX can help customers simplify the ongoing management of their cloud.  Key to successful cloud management is delivering robust end to end orchestration and automation. EMC and Cisco's integration with Microsoft System Center enables our customers to leverage the management tools and interfaces that they know and already utilize.  Additionally, EMC Storage Integrator (ESI) provides Microsoft application administrators more self-service and management empowerment and shortens the time to do storage provisioning by 4x for Microsoft applications.

Speaking of Microsoft applications, we've also just introduced 2 new VSPEX solutions to support them.   VSPEX for virtualized Microsoft Exchange makes deployment of 1,000 to 10,000 Exchange mailboxes fast and easy, while VSPEX for virtualized Microsoft SQL Server dramatically simplifies implementation of an environment supporting online transaction processing.

We're very excited about these solutions as well as all of the other things that come as a result of our collaboration with Cisco around VSPEX -and there's plenty more to come -so keep an eye out on www.cisco.com/go/vspex and follow @EMCVSPEX on twitter for the latest.