Nexus Technologies – IT Company providing Virtualisation Solutions, IT managed Services and IT Consultancy

As the growth of cloud computing continues apace, enterprises could struggle to manage their information as it becomes spread out across a growing number of different repositories, unless they can federate that information in meaningful ways.

That’s the view of EMC’s head of content management and archiving, Mark Lewis, who spoke exclusively at the V3.co.uk Summit. He explained that customers are already coming to his firm asking if it can federate or tie together this information and help to manage these federated repositories.

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Cisco, EMC and VMware announced Tuesday a joint venture to sell a new integrated data center product called V-Block.

Their venture, called the “Virtual Computing Environment coalition,” will sell and provide maintenance and service support for V-Block, and will combine EMC storage equipment, Cisco virtualized servers and networking equipment and VMWare virtualization technology.

Rumors of the deal — code-named “Alpine” — have been going around since September.

The companies say their coalition offers businesses “dramatic efficiencies” promising “significant reductions” in capital and operating expenses, without forcing organizations’ hands to choose between the companies.

The companies are selling Vblock Infrastructure Packages as “fully integrated, tested, validated, and ready-to-go/ready-to-grow infrastructure packages” that can scale. Together, the venture offers unified presales, services and support.

Citing McKinsey and Company figures that worldwide spending on datacenter infrastructure and services exceeds $350 billion annually — half on capital expenses and half on operating expenses — the companies say $85 billion, or 20 percent of the entire market, can be addressed with virtualization and private cloud technology by 2015.

Cisco and EMC currently have a partnership to collaborate around Cisco’s new data center platform, which the company calls “Unified Computing.” EMC owns almost 85 percent of VMWare.

Cisco and EMC also announced on Tuesday a joint venture called Acadia to build, sell and support products for corporate datacenters. The goal? “Accelerating customer build-outs of private cloud infrastructures through an end-to-end enablement of service providers and large enterprise customers.”

The targets? HP and IBM.

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In a direct challenge to computer giants IBM Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co., data storage firm EMC Corp. of Hopkinton has allied with Cisco Systems Inc., the world’s leading computer networking company.

In a joint venture, EMC, its majority-owned subsidiary VMware Inc., and Cisco will sell prefabricated business computer systems. The new products will be built with computer servers from Cisco, data storage hardware and software from EMC, and server management software from VMware. “Wherever you touch any one of the three of us, we will look like one company,’’ said Cisco chief executive John Chambers.

Cisco, long known for its equipment used in computer networks, this year started making servers, large computers that store and process information. IBM and HP are the industry leaders when it comes to selling computer servers to businesses. By joining forces, EMC and Cisco can expand into that market quickly, offering integrated systems built with technology from both.

“Basically we are removing risk,’’ said EMC chief executive Joe Tucci. “This is all about efficiency, control and choice.’’

The integrated systems, called VBlock Infrastructure Packages, will allow customers to buy all the equipment and software they need together, from one seller. Big businesses use data centers – large arrays of computers and storage gear – that are often cobbled together with products from various vendors, and are difficult to manage. EMC and Cisco will offer systems that would allow customers to install new software or manage company information from a single control center.

Tucci said VBlock would transform the company’s data center into a “private cloud,’’ similar to the cloud computing services found on the Internet, where users run software that is stored online instead of on their own desktops. In companies with a private cloud, computing and storage resources would be centrally managed and easily accessed by workers in various departments.

The alliance could be a major boost to Cisco’s effort to expand beyond the networking equipment business. Earlier this year, Cisco launched the Unified Computing System, a new line of server computers. This put Cisco in competition against industry titans IBM and HP, which sell integrated computers and storage products. EMC and VMware are dominant players in storage and server virtualization, technology that allows many computers to run together as efficiently as one machine, but can’t match IBM and HP in servers or Cisco in networking.

Mark Bowker, senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group in Milford, said the new coalition will let the three companies offer customers one-stop shopping – a fully-integrated package that they could not offer on their own. “They’ve taken server, networking, and storage and put them together into a single unit,’’ Bowker said.

EMC and Cisco also announced a joint venture called Acadia, which will build and manage VBlock data centers. Acadia workers would oversee the installation of VBlock systems and train employees to operate them. VMware and chip maker Intel Corp. are investors in the Acadia joint venture.

EMC shares rose 12 cents yesterday to close at $16.55 on the New York Stock Exchange. Cisco fell 9 cents to $22.91 on the Nasdaq exchange.

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Storage giant EMC has acquired software platform vendor FastScale Technology in a move designed to expand its Ionix IT management product line and help customers transition to private cloud environments.

FastScale’s flagship FastScale Composer Suite offering is a fully automated platform for building, optimising, managing and deploying application environments in physical, virtual and cloud infrastructures, according to EMC.

As such, the technology will enable EMC to transition its customers from physical to virtual datacentre environments and beyond to a private cloud model, said the firm.

“The addition of our software stack management, optimisation and provisioning technology to the EMC Ionix portfolio will help customers gain tremendous efficiencies and management flexibility across storage, server and network in physical, virtual and cloud infrastructures,” said FastScale chief executive, Lynn LeBlanc.

Jay Mastaj, vice president and general manager of the EMC Ionix Software Group said the automated IT management technology will help customers “fundamentally change the way they approach compliance, security and configuration management in the private cloud”.

“FastScale and its portfolio of products, intellectual property and talented employees will help us champion and expedite this transition of physical to virtual to private cloud infrastructures,” he added.

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