Dell, Cisco Partner With VMware Horizon View On Converged Infrastructure VDI Solutions

VMware on Wednesday unveiled new relationships with strategic partners Dell and Cisco under which the two server vendors are bundling VMware's new Horizon View 5.2 suite to develop pre-configured converged infrastructures for virtual desktop infrastructures (VDI).

Dell and Cisco are the first two vendors to take advantage of VMware Horizon View, the VDI software previously known simply as VMware View. VMware Horizon View is a part of the new VMware Horizon Suite VMware unveiled Tuesday at the VMware Partner Exchange conference, held this week in Las Vegas.

Carl Eschenbach, VMware president and COO, unveiled the offerings during his keynote address at the conference.

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VMware is working on a partnership with Cisco to develop VDI infrastructure on top of the Cisco UCS server platform, Eschenbach said.

VMware also worked with Dell to develop the Dell Desktop Virtualization System (DVS), a channel-focused VDI infrastructure based on Dell's Active System 800 converged infrastructure offering, he said.

Rafael Colorado, marketing director for desktop virtualization solutions at Dell, said his company is developing a new VDI workload on Dell's Active System 800 based on the company's enterprise VDI experience. "We believe our Active System 800 is the best converged infrastructure solution for VDI," Colorado said.

At the same time, Dell is expanding its VMware partnership into new combined solutions in the future, and it will reach out to VMware channel partners to take advantage of the solutions.

"We've created a program where we offer training and incentives to VMware partners through Dell PartnerDirect," he said.

In developing the VDI solution for the Dell Active System 800, Dell took advantage of customer feedback about the need to simplify VDI implementations in two areas, Colorado said. First, on the deployment side, partners are looking for simplicity in configuring complex solutions like VDI. Second, partners are looking for help in managing data center and virtual desktop infrastructures as they grow, he said.

"We developed this solution with VMware to ultimately leverage VMware channel partners," he said.

NEXT: Dell Offering Choice of Pre-configured Or Reference Architecture

This is not the first time Dell has taken advantage of VMware's solution provider base, said Dan O'Farrell, Dell's senior director of cloud client computing product marketing.

"With Dell's Wyse acquisition, we have already sold through common partners in the VMware channel," O'Farrell said. "We already have a large presence there."

Dell is offering the solution both as a reference architecture that lets solution providers use their own expertise to build their own VDI solution and as an end-to-end, fully pre-configured solution.

"Not all partners are the same," Colorado said. "Some have a higher level of sophistication, while others want a faster turnaround."

By going with the fully-configured solution, the solution provider can have it ready at the customer site in a matter of weeks with the opportunity to do configuration services into the customer environment, O'Farrell said.

"But if the solution provider chooses to integrate the solution on their own, it's because what we engineered may not be the perfect fit for the customer's niche environment," he said.

Colorado said he is not sure how much of the new Dell DVS solution will go through Dell's direct sales program.

"But I can say, the main target is the channel," he said. "It's optimized for the channel, starting from the fact that we are partnering with VMware."

The Dell DVS pre-configured solution and reference architecture for VDI on the Dell Active System 800 converged infrastructure solution is scheduled to ship in the third quarter of this year. At the same time, Dell plans to ship similar solutions based on Microsoft Exchange collaboration and private clouds, and it has a road map for future solutions based on SAP, Microsoft SQL and other applications, O'Farrell said.

Cisco was not able to provide additional details on its Cisco UCS converged infrastructure solution with VMware Horizon View in time for publication.

PUBLISHED FEB. 27, 2013