Type | Division |
---|---|
Industry | cloud platforms |
Founded | 2009 2011 (as VCE) |
Defunct | January 2016 |
Fate | Acquired by EMC, which was later acquired by Dell Technologies |
Key people | Chad Sakac (President) Trey Layton (CTO) |
Products | Vblock, VxBlock, VxRack, VxRail |
Parent | EMC Corporation |
Website | www |
VCE (abbreviation for "Virtual Computing Environment") was a division of EMC Corporation that manufactured converged infrastructure appliances for enterprise environments. Founded in 2009 under the name Acadia, it was originally a joint venture between EMC and Cisco Systems, with additional investments by Intel and EMC subsidiary VMware. EMC acquired a 90% controlling stake in VCE from Cisco in October 2014, giving it majority ownership. [1] VCE ended in 2016 after an internal division realignment, [2] followed by the sale of EMC to Dell. [3]
Cisco Systems, EMC Corporation and VMware (partially owned by EMC) unveiled a joint partnership in November 2009 to develop cloud computing platforms called Vblock Infrastructure Packages. [4] The partnership was originally called the VMware-Cisco-EMC alliance, though the name was later shortened to VCE, for the “Virtual Computing Environment coalition”. [5] [6]
At the same EMC World trade show, Cisco and EMC introduced a joint venture named Acadia. [7] [8] The goal of Acadia, originally set up as a separate legal entity, was to build Vblock Infrastructure Packages in a standardized and repeatable fashion for customer data centers. [9] Michael Capellas, who also was a board member of Cisco, was named chairman of Acadia, and its first chief executive officer (CEO) in May 2010. [10] [11] Sales initially encountered some confusion among customers (which often had different staffs for storage and networking, for example), and different fiscal quarter sales cycles. [12] By the end of 2010, Capellas told analysts the venture had 65 customers, with an average system costing about $2.5 million. [13] [14]
Acadia and the Virtual Computing Environment coalition combined into a single entity in January 2011, called VCE, the Virtual Computing Environment Company. [15] [16] Originally located in Silicon Valley and Dallas, Texas, an expansion was announced in March 2011 to Richardson, Texas with an investment from the Texas Enterprise Fund. [17] In October 2011, another office opened in Marlboro, Massachusetts, close to VCE's EMC-owned manufacturing plant in Franklin, Massachusetts. [18] [19] In July 2012, Cisco executive Praveen Akkiraju was appointed CEO and Frank Hauck as president. [20] It was estimated VCE had 1200 employees at the time, with undisclosed revenues but accumulated losses. [21] Publicized customers included Babson College [22] and the Mississippi Community College Board. [23] The press debated if the venture should be considered a "startup company", with one headline joking "VCE = virtual cash erosion" and questioning millions of dollars of executive compensation. [24] Others considered the arrangement to be a wise investment. [25]
Through 2012, there was a mixture of some success (with speculation of layoffs), and continued confusion due to products from competing partners such as NetApp FlexPod and Xsigo Systems. [26] [27] Cisco had announced its own "framework" called CloudVerse in late 2011 that was not specific to VMware. [28] [29] In August 2012, EMC announced a VSPEX reference architecture and partnership with Lenovo and other distributors that was seen as competing with a lower-cost option. [30] [31] [32]
In a November 2012 report by Gartner, VCE had a 57.4% share of integrated infrastructure systems in the second quarter of 2012 based on revenue. [33] Gartner had previously tracked server, networking, and external controller-based storage as individual markets. VCE was named one of the “2013 Virtualization 50” by CRN Magazine . [34] In May 2013, VCE estimated a $1 billion annual sales rate with more than 1,000 Vblock Systems sold. [35] However, in US Securities and Exchange Commission filings, EMC accounted for a cumulative loss of over $430 million by September 2012, and Cisco a loss of $457 million by early 2013, since revenues are recorded to the owning companies, not VCE itself. [36] EMC reported an investment of $667.2 million in cash and $13.2 million in stock-based compensation to VCE, for a stake of about 58%. [37] Cisco reported a gross investment of $457 million, for a stake of about 35%. [38]
By 2013, some of the same press writers that initially criticized VCE came to view the structure of VCE as being good business for investors. [39] Other press highlighted VCE as a source of innovation and financial performance for investors. [40] [41] Total VCE for 2013 has been reported at over $1B with over a 50% year-over-year growth rate. [42]
In October 2014, EMC announced that it had acquired majority control of the VCE venture, with Cisco maintaining a 10% stake. [1]
In January 2016, EMC announced that VCE had become the Converged Platform Division of EMC with Chad Sakac as President. [2]
On September 7, 2016, EMC was acquired by Dell. [3] The Converged Platform Division of EMC is currently known as the Converged Platform and Solutions Division of Dell EMC.
VCE marketed converged infrastructure servers known as vBlocks, which combine VMware vSphere software running on Cisco Unified Computing Systems (UCS) connected with Cisco Nexus switches, attached to EMC Symmetrix storage. Despite the "block" in the name, the storage can be accessed as either a block device or a file server.
Vblock Systems are marketed for large-scale datacenters which run software applications such as Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft SharePoint or SAP ERP. They are delivered in standard 19-inch rack units to aid in planning for cooling and power requirements. [35] [43]
The company initially manufactured converged datacenter units known as Vblock, which incorporate Cisco servers and networking hardware, EMC storage systems, and VMware for virtualization. [35]
Later, VxBlock was added providing the ability for customers to run VMware NSX.
In 2015, VxRack and in 2016 VxRail were added as separate products.
In 2009, the Virtual Computing Environment coalition announced three models of Vblock Infrastructure Packages. Vblock 2, intended for high-end data centers, was designed to support 3,000 to 6,000 virtual machines using Cisco UCS, Cisco Nexus 1000v and multilayer director switches (MDS), as well as EMC Symmetrix VMAX storage and VMware vSphere software. Vblock 1, intended for the midmarket, was designed for 800 to 3,000 virtual machines and had had a similar configuration to the Vblock 2, but with EMC Clariion storage rather than EMC Symmetrix VMAX. Vblock 0, the intended low-end configuration, was projected for release in 2010 to support 300 to 800 virtual machines and use a similar configuration, but with EMC Celerrastorage. [44] The term "infrastructure package" was later changed to "infrastructure platform" and then just "Vblock System".
Vblock is the brand name VCE uses for racks containing the components of its data center products. Prepackaging, called converged infrastructure, allows customers to select preconfigured and integrated solutions, with predictable units of power, weight, cooling, and geometry for data center planning purposes. [45]
Vblock systems consist of storage and provisioning from EMC, switches and servers from Cisco, and VMware virtualization software running on the servers. In addition, Vblock system customers' support calls are handled by VCE.
Vblock had two series based on the following compositional elements: [46] [47]
Vblock brand naming changed since its inception. [48] In 2009, the term Vblock Infrastructure Packages was announced by then Acadia (technical partnership), the Virtual Computing Environment coalition, as well as their primary investors. In late 2010 and continuing through 2011, the term Packages was replaced with Platforms. By mid-2012, the term, Infrastructure Platforms was replaced with Systems in wider circulation to arrive at, simply, Vblock™ Systems. [49] Meanwhile, constituent elements and technology included upgrades to the product lines from Cisco, EMC, and VMware. [50]
Originally, these combined a reference architecture with a physical and logical configuration step initially at a customer data center or colocation data center and later within a pre-manufacturing environment for shipment to a customer data center or colocation data center. Options were limited during the time these were marketed and sold.
Models were named EX, FX, GX and HX, and later 320, 340, and 350.
No confirmed numbers were announced publicly by VCE or its investors until 2013 [51] but when it was disclosed the numbers were provided conservatively as being over 800 customers in almost 60 countries with nearly 2000 VCE manufactured Vblock Systems sold. [52] [53] [54] Because of the lack of a manufactured physical and logical build on an actual VCE manufacturing floor, previous deployments in 2009 and early 2010 of what were called or referred to as Vblock (often with various use of upper and lower case spelling) are not considered to be Vblock by some pundits and infrastructure professionals [55] since these so-called reference architectures varied greatly from project to project when compared to late 2010 manufactured Vblock. Anecdotally, institutions and companies using Vblock have been involved in published testimonials. [56] [57] [58]
In May 2011, the Vblock System Series 300 was announced with models EX, FX, GX and HX (smallest to largest). The Vblock 2 was renamed the 700 series. [59]
The Vblock System 700 LX was announced at the EMC World May 2012 trade show, as the most expensive Vblock System, supporting thousands of virtual machines. VCE introduced the inclusion of EMC software for backup, recovery, replication, business continuity and data mobility for virtualized environments. Applications included EMC Avamar, EMC Data Domain, and EMC RecoverPoint. The Vblock System 700 included EMC VPLEX workload mobility and business continuity software, as well as support for new features in EMC Unified Infrastructure Manager, improved VMware integration, and centralized monitoring of multiple Vblock Systems. [60]
In February 2013, VCE announced Vblock 300 and Vblock 700 models with increased performance and data throughput, using upgraded server and storage components. [43]
In 2013 VCE announced products for the midrange and remote branch office market. [34] These models included the Vblock System 100 and Vblock System 200.
The Vblock 100 was designed to host up to 200 virtual machines in a 24U or 42U rack mount space with up to eight Cisco C220 M3 blade servers, two Cisco Catalyst 3750-X switches and up to 8 TB of storage capacity on an EMC VNXe3150 or VNXe3300 array. The Vblock 200 comes configured with up to 12 Cisco servers, two Nexus 5548UP unified Ethernet and SAN switches, a Cisco Catalyst 3750 management switch, and up to 105 hard drives via the included VNX 5300 array. [43]
VCE introduced a specialized system for SAP HANA in February 2013. It combined a Vblock System with SAP HANA in-memory computing and database application software. [43] Later in September 2013 VCE introduced specialized system for high performance database for Oracle as well as extreme applications for both VMware and Citrix VDI environments. [61]
Dell introduced a hyperconverged system at EMC World 2015 in February 2015. The first model is the VxRack 1032 based on EMC ScaleIO software defined storage. The second model was announced at VMware World in September 2015, called the VxRack 1034 based around VMware VSAN. Both models use commodity hardware (rumoured to be sourced from Quanta) with an attached local disk presented via ScaleIO or VSAN software.
Desktop virtualization management software that uses VMware View called FastPath was announced in August 2011, and upgraded in June 2012. [62] [63]
In February 2013, VCE announced the management software application Vision Intelligent Operations Software. [35] VCE Vision software that enables a single management pane for the components in the Vblock Systems it manages via plugins for third party management, automation, and orchestration tools from VMware, Cisco, BMC, CA, and others via RESTful API, SNMP, and unified logging. [43] [64] [65] [66]
VCE provides services through partners to plan, design, and deploy Vblock Systems. [67] [68]
VMware, Inc. is an American cloud computing and virtualization technology company with headquarters in Palo Alto, California. VMware was the first commercially successful company to virtualize the x86 architecture.
Dell EMC is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Hopkinton, Massachusetts and Round Rock, Texas, United States. Dell EMC sells data storage, information security, virtualization, analytics, cloud computing and other products and services that enable organizations to store, manage, protect, and analyze data. Dell EMC's target markets include large companies and small- and medium-sized businesses across various vertical markets. The company's stock was added to the New York Stock Exchange on April 6, 1986, and was also listed on the S&P 500 index.
NetApp, Inc. is an American hybrid cloud data services and data management company headquartered in San Jose, California. It has ranked in the Fortune 500 from 2012–2021. Founded in 1992 with an IPO in 1995, NetApp offers cloud data services for management of applications and data both online and physically.
iland Internet Solutions provides hosted cloud infrastructure as a service for production business applications, disaster recovery and business continuity, testing and development, and software as a service enablement for independent software vendors. iland also provides traditional colocation and hybrid cloud services. Founded in 1995, iland provides its services from high availability hubs specifically designed for cloud infrastructure in Boston, Washington D.C., Houston, Los Angeles, Dallas, Manchester, London, Amsterdam, Singapore, Melbourne, and Sydney. iland is a Premier-level partner in the VMware Service Provider Program (VSPP).
Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) is a data center server computer product line composed of server hardware, virtualization support, switching fabric, and management software, introduced in 2009 by Cisco Systems. The products are marketed for scalability by integrating many components of a data center that can be managed as a single unit.
Pure Storage is an American publicly traded technology company headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States. It develops all-flash data storage hardware and software products. Pure Storage was founded in 2009 and developed its products in stealth mode until 2011. Afterwards, the company grew in revenues by about 50% per quarter and raised more than $470 million in venture capital funding, before going public in 2015. Initially, Pure Storage developed the software for storage controllers and used generic flash storage hardware. Pure Storage finished developing its own proprietary flash storage hardware in 2015.
Virsto develops a VM-centric storage hypervisor. The company is privately funded and headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. On February 11, 2013, VMware announced that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire Virsto.
CTERA Networks is a privately held enterprise software company headquartered in New York and Israel. The company has regional offices in the UK, Italy, France, Spain, Germany, and Australia. As of 2021, the company is designated as the leading vendor in distributed cloud file storage by GigaOm.
Converged storage is a storage architecture that combines storage and computing resources into a single entity. This can result in the development of platforms for server centric, storage centric or hybrid workloads where applications and data come together to improve application performance and delivery. The combination of storage and compute differs to the traditional IT model in which computation and storage take place in separate or siloed computer equipment. The traditional model requires discrete provisioning changes, such as upgrades and planned migrations, in the face of server load changes, which are increasingly dynamic with virtualization, where converged storage increases the supply of resources along with new VM demands in parallel.
HP ConvergedSystem is a portfolio of system-based products from Hewlett-Packard (HP) that integrates preconfigured IT components into systems for virtualization, cloud computing, big data, collaboration, converged management, and client virtualization. Composed of servers, storage, networking, and integrated software and services, the systems are designed to address the cost and complexity of data center operations and maintenance by pulling the IT components together into a single resource pool so they are easier to manage and faster to deploy. Where previously it would take three to six months from the time of order to get a system up and running, it now reportedly takes as few as 20 days with the HP ConvergedSystem.
HP CloudSystem is a cloud infrastructure from Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) that combines storage, servers, networking and software.
HP Cloud was a set of cloud computing services available from Hewlett-Packard (HP) that offered public cloud, private cloud, hybrid cloud, managed private cloud, and other cloud services. It was the combination of the previous HP Converged Cloud business unit and HP Cloud Services, which is the OpenStack technology-based public cloud. It was marketed to enterprise organizations to combine public cloud services with internal IT resources to create hybrid clouds, or a mix of private and public cloud environments, from about 2011 until 2016.
Commvault is an American publicly traded data protection and data management software company headquartered in Tinton Falls, New Jersey. Commvault enterprise software can be used for data backup and recovery, cloud and infrastructure management, retention and compliance.
HyTrust, an Entrust company, is an American company specializing in security, compliance and control software for virtualization of information technology infrastructure. The company was founded in 2007, and is based in Mountain View, California. It was acquired by Entrust Corp. in January 2021.
Software-defined data center is a marketing term that extends virtualization concepts such as abstraction, pooling, and automation to all data center resources and services to achieve IT as a service (ITaaS). In a software-defined data center, "all elements of the infrastructure — networking, storage, CPU and security – are virtualized and delivered as a service."
PernixData was a software company based in San Jose, California. PernixData was founded in 2012, and acquired in 2016. Its main product is PernixData FVP, which is software for virtualizing server-side flash memory and random-access memory (RAM).
Nexenta Systems, Inc. is a company that markets computer software for data storage and backup, headquartered in San Jose, California. Nexenta develops the products NexentaStor, NexentaCloud, NexentaFusion, and NexentaEdge.
Dell Technologies PowerFlex, is a commercial software-defined storage product from Dell Technologies that creates a server-based storage area network (SAN) from local server storage using x86 servers. It converts this direct-attached storage into shared block storage than runs over an IP-based network.
Stratoscale was a software company offering software-defined data center technology, with hyper-converged infrastructure and cloud computing capabilities. Stratoscale combined compute, storage, and networking hardware with no additional third party software. Stratoscale has shut down with no details for the future of its products.
CloudEndure is a cloud computing company that develops business continuity software for disaster recovery, continuous backup, and live migration. CloudEndure is headquartered in the United States with R&D in Israel.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)