5 Key Features Inside Dell EMC's New VxBlock 1000

What You Need To Know About Dell EMC's VxBlock 1000

Dell EMC unleashed its new VxBlock 1000 converged infrastructure solution on Tuesday with new options for storage, data protection and Cisco integration aimed at simplifying data center operations.

"The VxBlock 1000 is about introducing greater degrees of flexibility, improving and enhancing the operational lifecycle experiences associated with the VxBlock architecture to improve customer satisfaction, and serve a larger base of customers," said Trey Layton, senior vice president of Dell EMC Converged Infrastructure, in an interview with CRN. "This solution has been both partner and customer-driven, and we're excited to make it available for the channel."

Here are five key features inside Dell EMC's new VxBlock 1000.

Native Data Protection

For the first time in VxBlock's history, data protection is now a native element of the VxBlock 1000. Dell EMC's data protection suite is integrated into the solution which can be reallocated as workloads evolve. Data protection options inside the solution include backup and recovery, replication, and centralized management.

"Customers gave us a lot of feedback in saying, 'We'd like to see you adapt your integration standards for data protection in a more flexible manner," said Layton. "Now it's a native element. It's very simple to add on. It's not something that comes with a rigid standard that you have to apply."

Cisco C-Series Servers

Previous VxBlock generations included Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) B-Series blade services. The new VxBlock 1000 also now integrated with Cisco UCS C-Series rack servers, including the C220 and C240 in Cisco's M4 and M5 server lines.

"Customers told us that, 'While we love the UCS B-Series blades, there are also emerging use cases where Cisco's UCS C-Series rack servers are very important to our applications. They're more economical for us to deploy in this particular type of application,'" said Layton.

Server Scalability Boost

Compared to previous VxBlock generations, Dell EMC said the VxBlock 1000 increases server scalability by 56 percent from 512 to 800 servers. Layton said the VxBlock 1000 foundation starts with a modular SAN and LAN fabric which can start very small and scale to accommodate some of the largest data centers in the world. "In these very large environments, you could buy an architecture to start out very small and grow incredibly large and do so off the same common architecture with the same lifecycle management," he said.

Storage Mix

Customers can mix four types of storage arrays into the VxBlock 1000, including Dell EMC's Unity, VMAX, XtremIO and Isilon solutions. The all-flash storage options include Unity 350F, 350F, 550F, 650F for general-purpose workloads; VMAX 250F and 950F for mission-critical workloads, XtremIO X2S and X2R for specialized workloads; and several versions of Isilon Gen 6 for transactional and sharing workloads.

Data Center Efficiency

Overall, Dell EMC touts the new VxBlock 1000 as the ultimate solution for data center simplicity and efficiency. The solution simplifies lifecycle assurance across mixed technologies that can reduce time spent managing upgrades by 75 percent with a single upgrade process for multi-technology systems. The 1000 can also reduce rack space by 60 percent and lower power costs by 33 percent to minimize floor space and power consumption.