Cisco and EMC Take "Three Paths to the Cloud" Strategy to the Next Level

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 28, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- VMworld -- Cisco and EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) today announced further collaboration to help accelerate IT transformation by providing customers with unrivaled choice and flexibility via "three paths to the cloud" — custom-design infrastructure, validated reference architectures, and pre-integrated converged infrastructure.  Cisco^® and EMC^® introduced new joint reference architectures, aligned channel partner incentives, and integrated customer support to speed customers' path to the cloud.

Building on a decade-long partnership, Cisco and EMC now provide enterprise and service provider customers with an unmatched menu of options to build cloud infrastructure.  The "three paths to the cloud" include:

• Implement a custom-designed infrastructure with best-of-breed products
• Install validated, easy-to-deploy reference architectures with Cisco solutions for EMC VSPEX™ Proven Infrastructure
• Purchase a pre-integrated converged infrastructure with VCE™ Vblock™ System.

Partnership Highlights:

• The two new Cisco® Validated Designs (CVD) for EMC VSPEX are unified computing reference architectures tailored to SMB and mid-market customers.  Designed to accelerate the journey to the private cloud, the CVDs are Cisco Solutions for EMC VSPEX for Microsoft Hyper-V Architectures and Cisco Solutions for EMC VSPEX for VMware vSphere 5.0 Architectures.
• More than 200 Cisco and EMC Velocity™ channel partners within the global VSPEX community have been trained to resell and deploy EMC VSPEX with Cisco Unified Data Center.
• Cisco and EMC have also aligned their channel incentive structures to simplify the process of accruing incentives and boost partner profitability.
• Cisco and EMC have implemented a customer support framework for VSPEX for collaborative case management.
• VCE — Cisco and EMC's joint venture with VMware — pioneered a groundbreaking integrated data center offering with end-to-end vendor visibility, enabling the leading time-to-market and one of the lowest TCO for converged cloud infrastructure.
• VCE's fully productized converged infrastructure standardizes processes and life cycle management to significantly improve application availability and enable VCE's unique seamless support experience. 
• VCE continues to gain traction in enterprise data centers as well as in cloud service providers with hundreds of VCE Vblock Systems in production at mission-critical data centers worldwide.
• VCE demand continues its strong growth in the most recent fiscal quarter and remains on track to reach a $1 billion revenue run rate.

Customer Quotes:

Rajinder Gill, Group Finance Director, Minor, Weir & Willis Ltd

"Our business needed a complete network and infrastructure upgrade in order to implement a new ERP system. VSPEX was an obvious fit for our environment and working closely with Synapse, we reduced our deployment and integration time. The prior validation work performed by Cisco, EMC and Synapse on VSPEX reduced our risk and complexity. Because of the tight integration between EMC, Cisco and VSPEX, we have decided to leverage the VSPEX platform as the primary core of our network and infrastructure for all current and future applications."

Indu Kodukula, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, SunGard Availability Service

"We want to devote our IT resources to developing new innovative automation tools for high-availability services, not building out infrastructure. The pre-integrated Vblock System architecture relieves our staff from having to make different vendors and solutions work together."

Channel Partner Quotes:

Joe Coxon, Business Development Manager, Synapse

"Many of the customers we work with want to deploy a cloud, but aren't quite sure how to do so quickly and easily.  VSPEX is a powerful solution that helps us deploy clouds for our customers quickly and efficiently. By leveraging our expert understanding of client requirements, and Cisco's and EMC's industry-leading technologies, we can deliver a complete solution that matches our customers' business needs."

Dave Hart, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Presidio

"We deliver the ultimate in choice and flexibility to our customers by offering solutions based on EMC and Cisco technologies.  We're seeing a lot of demand for Vblock Systems with larger enterprise and service provider customers and VSPEX configurations allow us to reach a broader market.  Both enable us to provide our unique expertise and differentiated value to help customers meet their business requirements."

Cisco Quote: 

Rick Snyder, Vice President, Global and Strategic Partners, Cisco

"Cisco and EMC partner every day in the engineering labs and in the field, helping customers around the world transform their data centers and strengthen their business. Through VCE we've unleashed market-moving innovation through the pre-engineered, pre-integrated Vblock Systems.  Now, we're working together to meet customer demand with Cisco Validated Designs for EMC VSPEX and aligned channel incentives to accelerate VSPEX adoption."  

EMC Quote: 

Josh Kahn, Vice President, Solutions Marketing, EMC Corporation

"VCE enables customers to standardize on a converged infrastructure solution, dramatically accelerating their journey to the cloud. We are very pleased with VCE's momentum and the benefits it is delivering to customers around the world. Building upon this, we are very excited to accelerate our partnership with Cisco on VSPEX to address market requirements for best-of-breed reference architectures offered exclusively via the channel. Channel partners are seeking solutions that reduce complexity and simplify the deployment for their customers."

Additional Resources:

Related Links

• Cisco Solution for EMC VSPEX for Microsoft Hyper-V Architectures
• Cisco Solution for EMC VSPEX for VMware vSphere 5.0 Architectures
• Learn more about EMC VSPEX
• Learn more about Vblock Systems

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About Cisco

Cisco, (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Information about Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, please go to http://newsroom.cisco.com.

About EMC

EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) is the world's leading developer and provider of information infrastructure technology and solutions that enable organizations of all sizes to transform the way they compete and create value from their information. Information about EMC's products and services can be found at www.emc.com.

Cisco and the Cisco logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. A listing of Cisco's trademarks can be found at www.cisco.com/go/trademarks.

EMC, EMC VSPEX and EMC Velocity are trademarks or registered trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries. VCE and Vblock are registered trademarks or trademarks of VCE Company LLC or its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company.

EMC Forward-looking Statement

This release contains "forward-looking statements" as defined under the Federal Securities Laws.  Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of certain risk factors, including but not limited to: (i) adverse changes in general economic or market conditions; (ii) delays or reductions in information technology spending; (iii) the relative and varying rates of product price and component cost declines and the volume and mixture of product and services revenues; (iv) competitive factors, including but not limited to pricing pressures and new product introductions; (v) component and product quality and availability; (vi) fluctuations in VMware, Inc.'s operating results and risks associated with trading of VMware stock; (vii) the transition to new products, the uncertainty of customer acceptance of new product offerings and rapid technological and market change; (viii) risks associated with managing the growth of our business, including risks associated with acquisitions and investments and the challenges and costs of integration, restructuring and achieving anticipated synergies; (ix) the ability to attract and retain highly qualified employees; (x) insufficient, excess or obsolete inventory; (xi) fluctuating currency exchange rates; (xii) threats and other disruptions to our secure data centers or networks; (xiii) our ability to protect our proprietary technology; (xiv) war or acts of terrorism; and (xv) other one-time events and other important factors disclosed previously and from time to time in EMC's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.  EMC disclaims any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release.

SOURCE EMC Corporation