EMC, Cisco Team on Virtualized Data Centers

HOPKINTON, Mass., and SAN JOSE, Calif. -- 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."

EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC)Cisco Systems Inc.