Cisco To Team Up With EMC For Virtualised Services Venture

Cisco Systems and EMC are consolidating their strategic alliance with the launch of a new line of products called vBlock, which will provide virtualised infrastructure for cloud computing, according to reports. The partnership will be announced this week, according to sources familiar with the situation.

Under the terms of the deal, Cisco will provide networking equipment and server computers to the vBlock line while EMC, which owns server virtualisation giant VMware, will contribute storage equipment and virtualisation technology.

The alliance will make Cisco more of a competitor against server makers IBM and Hewlett-Packard, both of which already sell a broad range of data centre equipment – but both also partner with Cisco in fitting out data centres.

The latest range of products will build on Cisco’s Unified Computing System (UCS), which was announced in March and is built on EMC’s VMware. The UCS, which marked Cisco’s entry into the server space, combines high-end hardware with integrated management software to create a data centre computing platform capable of hosting high-value applications.

This latest joint venture will enable customers to pay for the vBlock hosted service, based on the amount of computing power and storage that they need. “It’s a ‘virtual block’ of the data center,” one of the people familiar with the plan told Reuters. “You can buy it from them as a service, then eventually transition it to your own data centre.”

Cisco, which has made its name as a maker of networking equipment, hopes that the venture will help kick-start its move into the computer server market. However, Quocirca analyst Clive Longbottom told eWEEK Europe that Cisco is very likely struggling to convince customers. “The problem is it comes from Cisco. It would be like going to B&Q to buy your daily food. It doesn’t feel right,” he said.

However, investing in consolidated data centre technologies could be a wise move for managers looking to exceed the capabilities of their data centres in the long term. According to Longbottom, most data centres which were built five years ago have a ten to fifteen year life span. As companies expand and look for more manageable, flexible technologies, many could end up opting for the type of all-in-one option that Cisco and EMC are offering.

While Cisco is building up its challenge in the converged data centre, it is facing increased competition in its traditional home, the networking space. Long time competitor Juniper Networks last week announced a new cloud networking venture, using servers from IBM and Dell.

Contacted by eWEEK Europe, a Cisco spokesperson said: “Cisco, EMC and VMWare are long time partners and share a similar vision for the transformation of the data center and the IT industry. A robust ecosystem including many partners is critical to successfully address customers’ needs during this market transition and, while Cisco will have a wide variety of these relationships, our policy is to not comment on rumor or market speculation.”