VCE Intros New Higher-End Vblock, Integrates EMC Data Protection

The news was released at the EMC World 2012 conference being held this week in Las Vegas.

VCE is a joint venture of EMC and Cisco, with additional investment from VMware and Intel.

[Related: VARs Say VCE To Target SMBs With Entry-Level Vblocks ]

New to the VCE lineup is the Vblock Series 700 Model LX system, which is based on the entry-level VMAX 10K model of EMC's enterprise-class storage array. It also features the latest Cisco UCS blade servers, Cisco's Nexus networking technology, and support for VMware vSphere 5.

The Vblock 700 LX supports applications running over 2,000 simultaneous virtual machines, said VCE Chairman Michael Capellas at a Tuesday press conference. However, that number could be much higher or lower, depending on the application, Capellas said.

VCE is now including EMC data protection technologies to give Vblocks backup, recovery, replication, business continuity and data mobility for virtualized environments. Applications include Avamar virtual server backup software, Data Domain backup and recovery software, and RecoverPoint replication software.

The expanded data protection portfolio for Vblocks addresses an issue close to every CIO, Capellas said.

"It shows you the power of what we can do," he said. "We are natively integrated to the roadmaps of our parents. ... You can adopt new technology through Vblock faster than you can do on your own. We have access to our parents' roadmaps. And we have earlier access to their technology before you do."

Also included is EMC's VPLEX workload mobility and business continuity software, which allows entire data center workloads to be moved dynamically across multiple geographies and service providers. When used with multiple Vblock systems, VPLEX helps users share applications and data as needed.

Finally, Vblocks now supports new features in EMC's Unified Infrastructure Manager including several new storage infrastructure services, improved VMware integration and centralized monitoring of multiple Vblocks.

The Vblock 700 LX is now available.