VSPEX has always been about flexibility. We’ve heard from customers that they want an easy to deploy data center solution, but they also want to be able to choose their favorite networking vendor, server vendor, management tools, and even how they’ll rack, cable, and power the solution.
That’s why we’ve designed VSPEX to be as flexible as possible – designing a set of requirements for each solution and allowing customers and their resale partners to take it from there. It is clear that customers are happy with this approach, as Gartner recently noted that VSPEX became the #1 integrated reference architecture system in the fourth quarter of 2013.
Customers and partners are now telling us that they need data center solutions like VSPEX to evolve to meet the demands of their end users. Workers want greater access to their data, and they want better application performance and more control over critical IT resources.
Today we are announcing that we’ve evolved VSPEX to meet these demands by making VSPEX even more flexible. We’ve done this by creating VSPEX solutions that leverage EMC’s newest all-flash array and software defined storage technologies.
The first new VSPEX solution is built for large scale end user computing deployments of mixed desktop types, and is also perfect for pilot projects starting at 500 users. The solution is built on EMC’s XtremIO all-flash array which, like VSPEX, is sold through IT resellers that are part of the EMC Business Partner program.
This solution, which also includes VMware vSphere and VMware’s new Horizon View 6 virtual desktop software, provides up to 2,500 users with personalized access to their data and applications from anywhere, on any device, while providing a user experience similar to a flash-based notebook.
VSPEX with XtremIO and Horizon with View delivers persistent desktops, which allow end users to boot their unique desktop from any internet-connected device with all of their saved data and preferences intact.
The second set of new solutions that we’re announcing represents a radical re-imagining of what reference architecture can be. These new solutions for server virtualization and private cloud are built on ScaleIO, EMC’s software-defined storage offering.
Instead of using an external array, ScaleIO leverages direct-attached storage that is native to the server, making your storage and compute environment extremely scalable. Whenever you need more storage or processing power, you simply add another server. ScaleIO automatically identifies these new resources and redistributes workloads accordingly.
The new software-defined solutions don’t stop there. We’re also happy to announce that in calendar Q4, we’ll have a VSPEX solution available for RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines. RecoverPoint for VMs is a simple, more efficient and proven operational and disaster recovery solution for virtualized applications in VMware-based cloud environments. It provides local and remote replication in combination with continuous data protection for per-VM recovery to any point in time. To learn more about the solution, check out this Pulse blog.
With these new offerings, we’ve broken the VSPEX mold to better address the needs of our customers and their end users. Now it’s your turn – tell us how you plan to use new technology like flash and software defined storage to break the mold in your data center in the comments below.
Citation: Gartner Market Share Analysis: Data Center Hardware Integrated Systems, Worldwide, 2013. Published 7/2014
