EMC and Cisco Expand Strategic Alliance to Unlock Potential of Next Generation Data Centers

HOPKINTON, Mass. - March 16, 2009 -

EMC® and Cisco today announced they are expanding their strategic alliance to help customers to cost-effectively take advantage of their industry-leading information infrastructures to realize the benefits of next-generation virtualized data centers. With the launch of the Cisco Unified Computing System, the two companies will focus on testing products for interoperability and on developing data center solutions and support offerings.

As a next-generation data center platform, the Cisco Unified Computing System brings together computational, storage access and network resources into a cohesive system optimized for virtualization. This offers customers a new approach to simplifying data center complexities while lowering cost of ownership by integrating the Cisco Unified Computing System with EMC's broad portfolio of information infrastructure technologies. These include automated IT management solutions such as EMC Smarts® and EMC ControlCenter®, industry-leading storage products, and VMware’s powerful virtualization tools.

Cisco's Unified Computing System enables better utilization of IT infrastructure in a fully virtualized environment. These next-generation data center architectures will enable a new style of dynamic IT extending customers’ virtualized data centers, creating a foundation for private clouds that federate with compatible service providers.

“Customers are asking vendors to collaborate to address critical data center needs that will drive efficiency and their ability to do more with less. EMC and Cisco share a vision that enterprise IT will eventually evolve towards a private cloud model and both companies are committed to working together to achieve this,” said EMC's Frank Hauck, executive vice president, Global Marketing and Customer Quality. “Given virtualization is at the core of these next-generation data center architectures, EMC and Cisco, along with VMware, have been working together to invest significant resources together to provide customers the efficiency, control and flexibility they desire in next-generation data center architectures.”

"Customers are increasingly looking to industry leading companies to collaborate and deliver architectural solutions that increase business agility and reduce costs," said Rob Lloyd, executive vice president designate, Worldwide Operations for Cisco. "We have validated this approach through our longstanding strategic alliance with EMC. Together, EMC and Cisco, along with VMware, are unleashing the power of virtualization by pioneering a system level approach to deliver advances in efficient data center management and security and business continuance."

EMC and Cisco have been collaborating for years on creating an optimized information infrastructure that combines EMC’s expertise in storing, protecting and managing vast amounts of information with the power of Cisco's intelligent network. The two companies work together around storage area networking with an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) agreement that enables EMC to resell the Cisco MDS multilayer switches and Cisco Nexus 5000 platform as part of EMC Connectrix® family of connectivity products. As part of this relationship, EMC was the first storage vendor to offer a Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) switch based on the Cisco Nexus 5000 platform.

Moving forward, the two companies are focused on data center transformation by helping customers define where they are today, and more importantly, helping them take their data center into the future through the following key investments:

• Integrated Technology Architectures and Interoperability Testing: EMC and Cisco will continue to collaborate on designing and testing integrated technology architectures that simplify customers’ environments and enable seamless deployment of the companies’ technologies. In the critical area of IT resource management, EMC and Cisco will focus on discovery and dependency mapping, automated root cause analysis, and policy-based configuration management.
• Solutions Development: EMC and Cisco, along with VMware, have committed resources for a dedicated solutions lab to showcase the integration of the companies’ technologies and to develop new solutions that address customers’ most critical business requirements.
• Professional Services and Support: EMC and Cisco will expand collaboration by offering professional services that make it easy for customers evolve their data center architecture and more quickly realize the benefits of the powerful combination of the companies’ technology solutions. In addition, the two companies will expand their integrated customer support center to more efficiently assist issues around next-generation, virtualized data centers.

Additional Resources:

• Video: Joe Tucci Remarks on EMC's relationship with Cisco regarding Unified Computing
• Press release: Cisco Unified Computing System
• Press release: Cisco Open Partner Ecosystem