Today storage giant EMC announced the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure cloud reference architecture line-up. It’s a big deal for several reasons.

VSPEX has been developed in collaboration with Brocade, Cisco, Intel and VMware as well as a couple unexpected virtualization partners, including Citrix and Microsoft.

This decision translates into more openness for customers that will be using any one of the 14 different configurations (an initial number, according to EMC).  These in turn are divided into two categories: private cloud deployments, which can run on either vSphere 6 or Hyper-V depending on customer preference, and hosted “end-user computing” choices that are powered by either VMware View or Citrix’s competing XenDesktop.

On top of not limiting customers to VMware virtualization (a company that EMC happens to own), VSPEX also offers some other advantages as well.

“ Leveraging technologies such as data deduplication, compression and Fully Automated Storage Tiering (FAST), customers can expect to significantly lower operational costs. By integrating these technologies tightly with the hypervisor and end-user computing environments, customers can also benefit from simpler administration and lower management costs.”

SiliconANGLE and Wikibon will be covering this news extensively, and theCube is going to broadcast live from the EMC launch event. Be sure to check SiliconANGLE.tv for the upcoming coverage and analysis, kicking off at 11:30 am PST.