Virtual Computing Environments (VCE) is adding two smaller units to its powerful and pricey racks of integrated servers and network switches. In addition to the company’s $ 650,000 Vblock 300 system and $ 900,000 Vblock 700 system, buyers now have two additional options: a $ 100,000 Vblock 100 or $ 350,000 Vblock 200.
The smaller Vblocks are integrated racks of servers, storage and networking for remote business units or small and midsize businesses that have thus far shied away from converged computing infrastructure.
The new units are composed of the same components as their predecessors: EMC storage, Cisco network switches and (Intel-based) Cisco Unified Computing System servers, all governed by a virtual machine software from VMware.
Vblocks lead the field of integrated infrastructure by loading a Cisco V1000 switch on a rack that offloads the network traffic of a VMware ESX Server hypervisor. Getting both network communications and storage traffic out of the software switch in the hypervisor and onto a hardware switch that can fast-forward them into a converged network fabric has been a boon to virtual environments. Vblocks have caught on in some large enterprises, including the Bank of Australia.