Dell EMC Adds Cloud Updates to VxBlock Data Storage System

Dell EMC has unveiled its updated VxBlock storage and data protection systems for business computing, featuring enhanced capabilities and features designed to deliver cloud operations faster and more efficiently while also protecting and optimizing mission-critical enterprise workloads.

The company also has announced Ready Stack, a design-what-you-need converged infrastructure product line that allows companies to choose the specific components needed for their storage tasks and buy them in certified configurations from channel partners.

The VxBlock and Ready Stack offerings aim to accelerate business IT and digital-transformation efforts in a wide range of companies so they can improve and expand their IT capabilities, Brian Henderson, director of converged infrastructure marketing for Dell EMC, told Channel Futures.

Dell EMC’s Brian Henderson

The VxBlock products, which build on 10 years of VxBlock product design and history, are not a reference architecture but are complete, built-up systems using Dell EMC, Cisco and VMware products, said Henderson. They can be plugged into a data center and be up and running quickly, with support from Dell EMC.

The Ready Stack products take a different tack, giving customers and their partners the ability to choose from specific certified components to build custom systems. Customers used to buy individual storage systems for data, then a networking system and more, and connect it together to build their IT systems, noted Henderson.

“Now we are moving toward a converged infrastructure with storage and networking that is shipped as part of that package,” he said.

The Ready Stack products give partners more flexibility in the components that are being selected along with a reference architecture that guides them on how to build and configure them in a partner-driven and partner-delivered fashion, he said.

“Partners are going to love Ready Stack in particular because we have a great number of incentives to help them sell the systems,” said Henderson.

The Dell EMC Ready Stack validated design portfolio has now been expanded to include VMware-based IaaS on Dell EMC PowerEdge MX servers and PowerMax storage; VMware vSphere on Dell EMC PowerEdge 14th generation servers and Dell EMC Unity storage; and Microsoft Hyper-V on PowerEdge 14th generation servers and Unity storage. Customers also can choose their own combinations using any combination of Dell EMC server and storage platforms, as well as open networking and data-protection options, the company said.

Pete Manca, senior vice president of product development for Dell EMC, wrote in a recent blog that the latest updated VxBlock 1000 devices provide higher scalability, broader component choices to support the consolidation of mixed workloads, and new flexibility to incorporate new technology while protecting previous hardware investments.

Dell EMC’s Pete Manca

“Our latest VxBlock 1000 enhancements broaden these choices even further, with additions of new Dell EMC storage and data-protection platforms, Cisco UCS servers and deeper support for the latest components in the VMware vRealize Suite 2018,” wrote Manca.

Ryan Deppe, network operations supervisor at construction company Cianbro Corp., said his company has seen massive benefits by moving its core operations to Dell EMC VxBlock systems.

“Dell EMC VxBlock enables us to take an almost 10-year step forward in technology with a single purchase,” said Deppe.