There’s industry chatter about what the growing adoption of hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) might mean for the converged infrastructure (CI) space. As a company that retains its top spot in IDC’s Certified Reference Systems & Integrated Infrastructure Tracker with a 48% share — nearly 1.5X that of any other vendor — and serves thousands of customers who rely on CI, Dell thinks it’s clear CI will remain a popular choice for years to come.
We continue to invest in energizing the CI space, helping customers to modernize and automate for the cloud era on our VxBlock 1000 platform. With this legacy of leadership and innovation, it’s no wonder IDC reports that Dell is the #1 provider of converged systems for the past six years.
Today, we’re announcing the next key milestone in our commitment to CI innovation: the multi-year extension of our longstanding systems integrator agreement with Cisco.
“It’s difficult to overstate Dell’s decade-long commitment to the converged infrastructure market,” said Eric Sheppard, Research Vice President, IDC. “The enormous resources Dell has invested into this market have been directly responsible for driving down data center costs, complexity and risk for the many organizations running the company’s converged infrastructure all around the world. Dell’s continued investments also stand as proof of the company’s commitment to the market and a deep belief in the benefits convergence brings to the datacenter.”
Working Together to Drive CI Innovation and Value
As you may know, Dell (then EMC) and Cisco were the first to market with a CI system when we formed a joint venture with VMware in 2009.
Since then, Cisco has provided networking (Nexus) and compute (UCS) technology for Dell through multiple iterations of VxBlock, while Dell has continued to be a top-tier reseller of Cisco technology. Cisco rounds out the all-in-one VxBlock 1000 technology stack that’s built on powerful Dell storage and data protection, giving businesses a reliable and highly performant platform for VMware cloud operations.
The newly inked agreement entails continued company alignment across multiple organizations: executive, product development, marketing and sales. This means we’ll continue to share product roadmaps and collaborate on strategic development activities, with Cisco investing in a range of Dell sales, marketing and training initiatives to support VxBlock 1000.
Most recently, this joint development introduced Cisco UCS 6454 fabric interconnect support for higher scale, performance and throughput in VxBlock 1000, as well as a broader range of Cisco M5 server options, including the new Performance Optimized UCS C480 M5.
With so many cloud-ready capabilities in VxBlock 1000, we are seamlessly bridging our CI customers to the new multi-cloud landscape.
Customer Benefits from this Powerhouse CI Partnership
The primary factor driving Dell and Cisco’s commitment to working together on CI is the enormous range of benefits it provides each of our customers.
VxBlock 1000 users experience improved assurance and lower operational risk through Dell’s lifecycle management of the included Cisco technologies, which are fully integrated into a single infrastructure stack along with Dell storage and data protection. They also enjoy faster support and time to resolution thanks to Dell’s specialized support staff, who are highly trained and experienced in working with Cisco technologies.
The joint commitment also delivers ongoing, rapid access to fully tested Cisco technology options that are incorporated into VxBlock 1000. Of course, none of these benefits would be worthwhile if our joint projects didn’t also deliver on the promise of CI — with consistently simpler, faster ways to support mission-critical workloads and cloud initiatives.
I know I speak on behalf of Dell Technologies in expressing excitement and appreciation for our continued alliance with Cisco around this highly successful CI business. Our collective investments of engineering, technology and support has resulted in a decade-long leadership position of the CI category bolstered by a long list of innovations built into the VxBlock 1000 platform. It’s a sentiment that we don’t take lightly and is something we’re grateful is also shared by our partners at Cisco.
“Cisco is committed to the partnership with Dell and to jointly delivering innovative solutions for our VxBlock customers. By extending this agreement, we are continuing to provide powerful and integrated technologies with Cisco UCS, Nexus and MDS and delivering on our commitment to innovation for VxBlock.” – Frank Palumbo, SVP, Global Data Center Sales, Cisco
Watch for More VxBlock 1000 News
We’re eager to continue building on our 10-year history of CI system innovation with Cisco and look forward to sharing more milestones with you. Watch for additional joint innovation announcements regarding VxBlock 1000 later this year.
If you’re attending Dell Technologies World in Las Vegas, April 29-May 2, or Cisco Live US in San Diego, June 6-9, stop by to talk with Dell and Cisco reps and see what’s new. You can also learn more about VxBlock 1000 here.
